Pete Buttigieg: A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family

[Nevilledog]

https://petebuttigieg.substack.com/p/a-terrible-thing-happened-to-my-family

Someone decided to hurt our family this week. I’m furious, and I want to share what happened.

You’ve probably heard of “swatting.” It’s a cruel and dangerous kind of hoax that has started happening more frequently in recent years. Someone anonymously calls 911 with a false report of imminent danger, such as a hostage situation, at the home of a public figure. Law enforcement swarms the house, guns drawn, terrifying the unsuspecting homeowner and family and sometimes even leading to deaths or injuries in the confusion. It’s happened to dozens of lawmakers, judges, celebrities, and others. (When I was in the Cabinet, someone attempted to do this to our home, but fortunately the hoax was quickly detected.) It’s become enough of a problem that the FBI now has a dedicated database to track such incidents.

Now imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team. Hadn’t thought of that? Me neither, until a few days ago when a police officer and a CPS worker showed up at our home and politely asked to speak with me.

I showed them in, invited them on the deck so that we could hear each other over the barking dog, and asked what was going on. They explained that there had been an allegation against me, that it concerned our four-year-old twins, and that a forensic interview had been arranged for the children the following day. I could not be present at the children’s interview, nor could any family member sit in. Afterwards, they would come back and interview me. And only then would they tell me anything about the nature of the allegation.

I was bewildered and troubled, but tried to stay calm. I’m used to any number of falsehoods, attacks, and serious problems being thrown my way. What I didn’t understand was what could have led to this kind of visit. Then, the CPS worker told me something that made my stomach turn: I was not to be alone around the children, at least until the interview took place the next day. They asked if I had relatives nearby or could perhaps stay at a hotel for the night.

The officer and the CPS worker wanted to see the children. I invited them to stay until Chasten, who was out running errands and preparing to pick the twins up from summer camp for the day, returned home. When he pulled up in the family car, the kids bounded into the house, looking curiously at the two guests. They were courteous and professional, inviting the kids to inspect the officer’s police car, which fascinated them of course, while the grownups talked in the driveway. We agreed that the kids would stay at their grandparents’ house after our family dinner that night. And then they left.

*snip*

[applegrove]

1. I hope the GOP people who did this get charged.

Last edited Fri Jun 26, 2026, 07:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Psychopaths do this.

[hookaleft]

2. OMG I read his whole post on substack

I cannot believe someone could be so cruel. But what really pisses me off is that the authorities didn't realize that is was bullshit from the start. I know he is being gratuitous, giving the authorities the benefit of the doubt, but I don't. How you put two 4 year old children through an hour long interview without their parents and without a lawyer, which is what they needed, to insure they weren't being coerced or emotionally damaged. I hope the find the person that did this and prosecute them to the maximum extent of the law.

[Mark.b2]

3. People who do this need the stiffest of penalties...

It wastes law enforcement resources and exposes victims to potential injury or death. It happens too much.

[UpInArms]

4. The cruelty is the point

not a byproduct

I despise these awful people

[mahina]

5. Vile.

[yaesu]

6. Another good reason to rid yourself of tRumper friends and family forever. nt

[slightlv]

24. Absolutely...! They can't stand the fact that a good man, and a good man

for the people is gay and that he and his partner have kids. To these degenerates' minds, any kids not growing up in the Xtian family of one woman, one man, any number of kids HAVE to be abused by the very nature of the relationship. This is your Dominionism growing tentacles and reaching out farther and farther until they obtain their goal -- a theocracy made up of ONLY there view of religion. Thing is, most of what they believe isn't truly biblical, and certainly not biblical when you go back and get a true translation from Aramaic!

I wish Pete all the best in the world. I was a victim of something like this after my 4 yo fell completely onto a fire ant mound (in the backyard of her on-base daycare!) in Texas and they didn't even take her to the hospital, nor call either me or my husband. For all they knew, my daughter could have allergic. At the very least, the medical center would have given them a salve to ease the sting and hurt of the bites. I've been bitten by fire ants... they aren't to play around with. Anyway, hubs and I were incensed and he reported it to his CO, who ran it up the ranks. They retaliated by calling ME neglectful to CPS. Let me tell you, after CPS was satisfied and walking out the door, I let that onbase daycare have it with both barrels blasting!!! This was nearly 50 years ago. It was so traumatic, I can remember it like it was yesterday. That's why I have great empathy for Pete and Chastain. This will live inside them for decades.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

7. Scary and sad

[enough]

8. Our America -- treated as guilty before an investigation.

A family traumatized on the basis of one wild accusation.

[Violet_Crumble]

9. That's a disgusting abuse of a system there to protect children in danger...

While they're dealing with the false report, in the meantime there's children out there in real danger that aren't being got to in time because some evil fuckwit thought it'd be a gotcha moment to screw around with this family.

I doubt any anonymous reporter is truly anonymous and could be traced in cases like this. Also, there shouldn't be anonymity between the person placing the report and the authorities, as there seems no point to that. I dunno, the whole anonymous thing seems to be the equivalent of hanging a welcome sign out for all lunatics with a political axe to grind to go after public figures.

[slightlv]

25. I have to believe they can, if they want!

We get traced for every other thing in this country. We are living in a true to form police state. Most people aren't aware of it, or think it'll never mean anything for them. They're stupid, afaic!

[yellow dahlia]

10. Made my blood boil.

Buttigieg handled it with grace and aplomb.

[Attilatheblond]

14. Made me reach for my checkbook to send some $ to Win the Era and help Pete build a better world for those kids

Hope authorities were able to track the caller and will serve up a heaping load of legal pain.

[yellow dahlia]

15. Hear! Hear!

[MustLoveBeagles]

11. I'm beyond angry this happened to Pete and his family

Whoever did this needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

[SWBTATTReg]

12. Just goes to show that if public figures are accused of such crap, far more attention and scrutiny should be

made of such accusations before anything is actually done by agencies. As in this case, the accusations were totally false and anyone who knows these two and their kids would know that the accusations are false.

[FakeNoose]

13. He doesn't deserve this - any of this!

Pete Buttigieg is a great American and a great Democrat. He has worked hard and sacrificed for all of us as an able administrator in Joe Biden's cabinet, as a mayor, and as a military leader. He's a loving father and husband, he has many friends, and he's an inspirational leader of the Democratic Party.

This bullshit has got to stop! How can good citizens protect themselves from evil cowards who "drop a dime" and give no evidence - including their name - whatsoever? It's not right!

[JoseBalow]

16. Four-year-olds, Dude...

[warmfeet]

17. Pete Buttigieg: A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family

To move past this perhaps we need to admit to our inherent cruel nature. It's a tough one. Maybe we can move on from this.

[OldBaldy1701E]

18. Welcome to my world, Pete!

I went through the same thing while working at a private school. Some asshat who was being fired for not showing up to work for days on end, phoning in his directions and not being there to deal with any parents (despite being in charge of both the afterschool programs as well as the summer camps) decided to try and take me down as a way to distract from his own failures at the school. He made wild accusations and offered vague bits of 'proof' to the head of the school. None of it was anything other than made up crap. So, when he didn't get the reaction he wanted, he went to the Department of Child Services and the police. The police pretty much laughed in his face, as he had nothing other than his statements to offer them. But, DCS, on the other hand...

Let's just say that, after being put through a ridiculous situation that culminated with a meeting in where the investigating agent explained that their findings were that the guy made the entire thing up as a personal vendetta, said that there was nothing further to investigate. THEN, she informed me that they were going to keep the file in their records. I demanded an explanation as to why they would do this after what they had said and she mumbled something and ended the interview.

I am convinced that this has hung over my head in regard to trying to find similar work for the past 15+ years. I have always been on the lookout for actual evidence of it appearing during an attempt to seek employment so I can rain holy hell on DCS for slander, libel, and whatever else I can find to hit them up with, i.e.: 'Lawsuit from hell'. I have yet to discover that this bogus report was used at any time, so I have not had the chance to go on the offensive. Yet.

This is the reality of being accused of something that involves children even when there was nothing to the accusation other than some asshole who was desperate to try and save some kind of face with everyone. All it takes is someone to open their mouth. Nothing else is required to make your life pretty much end. Thanks to the insanity surrounding such accusations, no one can expect anything approaching a fair appraisal of the situation at all. Hell, the head of the school was seen as a hero for 'defending' me, and then a year or so later, I learned that he was just saving his school, not me. He would have gladly tossed me under the bus if he had been put in the position to do so. Over a lie. It just didn't play out that way.

I feel for you, Pete. It sucks to no end, and there is just nothing you can do to remove the stain from it. As I have explained to many others: the damage is done. It doesn't matter if you actually did it or not, the accusation is the damage and it is fatal.

Good luck, sir. The stigma of being 'guilty' of nothing has helped destroy my life. At least you are wealthy and have some connections.

[TomSlick]

19. This also happens to people who are not public figures.

Disgruntled exs, in-laws, neighbors, etc. can make unsubstantiated reports to CPS just to cause grief. In my part of the country, the CPS investigators have no apparent training or judgment and engage in a presumption of guilt.

The victim is obliged to incur legal fees and public embarrassment. (Nothing is private in small towns.) Even if a victim can overcome the CPS presumption of guilt, the record of the investigation remains as a scarlet letter. The allegations are often anonymous and there is no remedy for the defamation.

Child abuse is a serious problem but; again in my part of the country, the system is broken.

[debsy]

20. Those people are horrible and deplorable, just like President Hillary said.

[niyad]

21. Sadly, it doesn't just happen to famous people with a target on their

backs. I have seen several such situations, although the people involved were not famous, not celebrities.

Years ago, I was friends with a young couple who lived in my apt. complex. They had a young son, to whom I was the adopted aunt. They happened to be Pagan, which annoyed the good little fundy xians in the apt below them, so much so that the fundies made a complaint to CPS. It took a while before things got sorted out, much to the shock and dismay of the fundies. Let us just say, it is not smart to threaten or harm those whom I hold dear.

[slightlv]

26. I lost a husband and wife pair in my coven early on in the 80's

due exactly these types of circumstances. They stayed hidden and solitaire, and going to church every Sunday, until the children were grown. Then we welcomed them back into the group, letting them know how much we had missed them. It was a point in time when people in our small suburb of KC were getting thrown in jail, losing jobs, threats to their family, etc, simply because they held a circle in their home or read Tarot cards. These effected me to the bone. I never forgot the feeling on having it done to me around 1987. It was two pagans who called into my work, identifying me, hoping I'd lose my job. Instead, we had more government contracts than any other contract and the personnel and HR just laughed about it. My direct boss, head of the dept, actually came in and gave me a hug to let me know he accepted me as I was and was just glad I was there. He's Scots, btw... history in his family, I always guessed.

I would love to pick up some extra money reading Tarot, but the discrimination of those days terrifies me still... even tho when I read I only ever charged $20 a reading. We have way too many churches (like on every other corner) in this little town to feel comfy doing something like that.

[AverageOldGuy]

22. And that's just the beginning

[LetMyPeopleVote]

23. MS NOW-Buttigieg says his family was target of 'politically motivated hoax'

The former transportation secretary described it as “the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.”

Buttigieg Says his Family was Target of ‘Politically Motivated Hoax’ www.ms.now/news/buttigi... #horrific

— ljconrad (@ljconrad.bsky.social) 2026-06-26T20:15:20.728Z

https://www.ms.now/news/buttigieg-says-his-family-was-target-of-politically-motivated-hoax

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his family has been targeted in a “politically motivated hoax” after someone made what police characterized as a false report to Child Protective Services alleging he committed crimes against his children.

In a Substack post Friday, Buttigieg wrote that an anonymous caller reported to CPS that his 4-year-old twins he shares with his husband, Chasten, were “at risk.”

“The caller said that he had spoken to a woman who claimed to have met me at a conference several years ago in Alabama, where she said I told her that I had committed unspeakable violent crimes, and the caller believed my children were still at risk,” Buttigieg wrote.

Buttigieg, a prominent Democrat and potential 2028 presidential contender, likened the incident to “swatting” — when someone calls 911 to falsely report an immediate threat, often at a public figure’s home — “but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team.”

As a result of the allegation, Buttigieg said a CPS worker told him he could not be around his children unsupervised for 24 hours while the allegation was investigated. He and his husband dropped the children off with their grandparents for the night, beginning what Buttigieg described as “among the darkest hours of my life.”.....

The police officer on the case “made clear that he believed this was politically motivated, and said it would not be referred to a prosecutor,” Buttigieg wrote. “Nothing in the forensic interview with the children, which was conducted by trained personnel, had led to concerns.”

[Uncouth Celt]

27. It is a horrible thing because...

I am 61 years old. Long story short, in 1989, I got physical custody of my 2 infant children. Daughter 3, Son 2. This same thing happened to me, though. I admit that in my circumstance "politics" wasn't the catalyst for it. I never found out who sicked CPS on me, but when they came to my home and wanted to question my children in a separate room, I raised hell about not letting my babies going into a room alone with strangers. That woman looked me in the eyes and said, I can take your children away from you with a word. This is mandatory. So fucking scary. After it was all over with, the STATE discovered that I was a VERY GOOD father.

[CanonRay]

28. The GOP has a long historyofthis shit

Going back to Nixon and the ratfuckers

[BurnDoubt]

29. Presuming the entire episode is recorded for posterity...

questioners under oath.
No one in this situation should be trusted.

[Blue Owl]

30. Time to rally around Pete and make sure this goddamned bullshit never happens again