Buttigieg briefly separated from his children after police say he was target of false report

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was the target of an anonymous report that police determined was false and that he said forced him to spend a night away from his 4-year-old twins.

According to Buttigieg, a Michigan State Police officer and a child protective services worker came to his home in Traverse City after they received an anonymous report alleging he posed a danger to his children. Authorities arranged forensic interviews for his twins and instructed him not to be alone with them until the interviews were complete.

Buttigieg described the 24-hour ordeal in a Substack post as "among the darkest hours of my life.”

Michigan State Police said in a statement to The Associated Press they received an “anonymous report” and that they and child protective services “responded and determined the report was false.”

Buttigieg said investigators told him the anonymous caller claimed he had confessed years earlier to violent crimes during a chance meeting in Alabama. Buttigieg said he had never been to the town where the meeting allegedly occurred.

He said police told him the allegation would not be referred to prosecutors and that they believed it to be politically motivated, while Child Protective Services found nothing to substantiate the report.

“I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel at the idea that someone brought our children into this," Buttigieg wrote. “They are four years old. Four. They do not know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is.”