News of the Day: The Attack on Pete Buttigieg
Even in today's climate, there should be one fundamental principle everyone respects: whatever you think about someone in politics, you leav
What Happened
Someone made an anonymous complaint last month against Pete Buttigieg involving his young children, triggering a child abuse investigation. There’s no evidence Buttigieg did anything wrong or even could have done the specific things he was charged with. He likened it to one of those swatting attacks that have become so prevalent with MAGA. Someone is targeted - say, a judge rules against Trump and is called out by him on Truth Social - and someone else who follows them online calls in a fake emergency to 911, like a hostage-taking at their house. The police rush in and the person targeted is badly scared if not actually harmed. It’s cruel and bad for our basic freedoms, not to mention a waste of police resources.
But this was directed at Buttigieg’s small children. That’s an unusual low even for us today.
I’ll let Pete tell the story in his own words. In some ways it’s one of the least violent ways an investigation like this could have happened if it had to happen at all. The cops didn’t break down his door, they didn’t rush in guns blazing in the middle of the night, and they didn’t literally rip the Buttigieg children out of their children’s arms. But the fact that this was still so traumatic and so upsetting for any parent to hear about just goes to show how seriously wrong the false report was.
What Pete Buttigieg Wrote
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.
[...] After spending a sleepless night wondering what the hell was going on, and spending half a day anxiously picturing what our children were going through without their parents, I waited until the appointment time for my “interview” finally came. With the kids back at their grandparents’ house after their appointment in town, and Chasten having been asked to wait upstairs, the officer and CPS worker sat down at our kitchen table with me and my new lawyer.
Then, for the first time, the officer explained what the allegation actually was. An anonymous caller had contacted CPS. 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.
That was all. The officer had a couple of obvious questions. He asked if I had been to the town where the woman claimed she had met me. I have not. Then the officer made clear that he believed this was politically motivated, and said it would not be referred to a prosecutor. Nothing in the forensic interview with the children, which was conducted by trained personnel, had led to concerns
[...] My in-laws had to explain to my children, whom we have taught to avoid talking to strangers, that they would need to have a conversation, one at a time and for nearly an hour each, in a place they’d never been, with adults they did not know, who would ask questions we weren’t allowed to know either. For twenty-four deeply distressing hours, we had no idea what I was accused of or what was about to happen. We could not understand someone abusing the system like this in order to hurt me and my family with an absurd and easily refuted allegation of a horrific crime.
The police officer, the CPS professional, and the forensic interviewers who spoke to my children were just following procedure and doing their jobs - admirable jobs that must be incredibly difficult every day, protecting the most vulnerable children from the most horrible threats. When a serious allegation is made, they respond. But in this case, their time and resources were wasted in a cruel, politically motivated hoax that harmed our family.
Now our family is left to deal with the aftermath. I worry about any unseen effects this had on our kids, on Chasten and me, and on the rest of our family. Even though the accusation was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement, I still worry about the harm it has done. Chasten and I worry about who else might try to do this kind of thing, to us or to others. And at the most basic level, I worry about how anyone, even in today’s world, could fail to respect the absolutely fundamental principle that whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave people’s kids out of it.
What It Means
It’s easy (and absolutely correct) to condemn the person who made the report. That’s the easy part. These swatting incidents, doxxing, and the like are about power from a distance, fear, and intimidation, and they’re just not okay in a society built on free speech and the right to participate in the political process. And even beyond that, you don’t go after a person’s family.
As I said, that’s the easy part. What we do with CPS and the cops is a good deal harder.
I’m almost pathologically sympathetic to the authorities here. I’ve worked a little with domestic violence groups, not in the sense of being a specialist of any kind but just as an extra pair of hands that can be directed to get things done. Still, those experiences weigh on me, and at least at the level of gut instinct, I lean heavily in favor of investigating things like this thoroughly and quickly, and in taking steps to protect the family while you investigate. Even if it’s hard for the family. The chance of child abuse slipping through the cracks is just too high.
Reading Mayor Pete’s account, though, I can see how calling this “hard” really undersells it. He doesn’t seem to be exaggerating the impact of what happened to them at all; if anything he’s much more restrained and reasonable than I think most of us would be. Squaring that truth with the fact that I still believe what I said above about the real danger of under-investigating these things is difficult, even from my safe distance. In this case it seems obvious that Buttigieg couldn’t have done what he was charged with, and more flexible investigation policies might have made things much easier for the Buttigieg family. But there’s always going to be cases that can’t be ruled out so quickly, where it’s a judgment call on how to protect the kids without putting them through this kind of hell.
It’s also not lost on me just what kind of family the Buttigiegs are:
Pete and Chasten are obviously a gay couple, and this all happened in an era when families like theirs often just aren’t seen as legitimate (or safe for kids) by the people making these politically-motivated reports.
They’re also white and well-off. Families that aren’t often have a very different experience with CPS.
There’s obviously a larger conversation to be had on how CPS can do their work better with less damage to the families they’re investigating, that I’m not particularly qualified to have an informed opinion on. But this is also one of those situations where competing values are just going to come into tension in at least some of the cases. That’s what makes the people throwing this at the Buttigiegs and other people engaged in public life so horrible. It complicates an already-difficult balancing act and saps away valuable resources that keeps CPS from helping the people that really need it.
I do hope the Buttigiegs are bearing up as well as they can after this. They deserve better. Their kids, too.
And not that they need to be for that last point to be true, but look: their kids are adorable. (PF)
Related Stories
The Atlantic: “Pete Buttigieg’s Ordeal Is a Frightening New Form of Political Harassment” (PF)
Slate: “Pete Buttigieg Didn’t Have to Let Those CPS Officers In” (PF)
Musical Break
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