Police vetted dubious allegations only after Buttigieg was separated from children

Pete Buttigieg

Officials who separated former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his young twins last month relied on a vague and unsubstantiated allegation from an accuser authorities later deemed possibly “mentally unstable,” according to previously unreported police records.

The records, obtained by The Washington Post, and an interview with the apparent complainant offer the most detailed account yet of how a false tip led investigators to the home of one of the country’s most prominent Democrats, drawing bipartisan outrage.

Child welfare experts who reviewed the documents at The Post’s request said they illuminate a flawed process that was made worse by poor judgment by agencies and a lack of communication among investigators from two states.

Michigan State Police reports detail the chain of events from the allegation to its eventual determination it was unfounded and potentially politically motivated. Indiana child welfare authorities who received a tip on a hotline with “very limited information” about Buttigieg did not pass along the caller’s name or contact information when notifying officials in Michigan, where Buttigieg now lives, which the Indiana child welfare agency says is their policy.

Michigan police waited six days after approaching Buttigieg to attempt to identify the caller.

By then, Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and 2020 presidential candidate, had gone public with the ordeal in a June Substack post, describing it as “the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.”

Michigan authorities had told Buttigieg he could not be alone with his 4-year-old children until they could be interviewed away from their parents the next day, Buttigieg recounted. The children stayed with their grandparents who lived nearby. Buttigieg, who is widely expected to run for president again, called that 24-hour separation “among the darkest hours of my life.”

Buttigieg said the authorities initially would not tell him what he was accused of. Vivek Sankaran, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and child advocacy law expert, said he was troubled that Michigan State Police went to Buttigieg’s door with such a vague allegation that didn’t present any indication that children were imminently at risk.

“At the very least, it’s incredibly poor investigative work. I would even say reckless, in light of how harmful this is for the family,” Sankaran said.

“It should scare all of us,” he added.

Michigan State Police spokesperson Lauren Thompson-Phillips said the investigation was “conducted promptly, and the allegations were determined to be unfounded,” adding that the department’s “responsibility was to assess and ensure the safety of the children involved.”

The first openly gay Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate, Buttigieg, 44, has faced attacks from some corners over his sexual orientation and his decision to adopt two children with his husband, Chasten. He told authorities of the “many threats” his family receives, including death threats, according to the report.

“This has been a painful and infuriating situation for the family,” Buttigieg spokesman Sean Manning said in a statement to The Post. “They are in touch with Michigan authorities, seeking answers and accountability for what happened.”

The Michigan attorney general’s office has opened an investigation of the allegation against Buttigieg and how it was handled, spokeswoman Kimberly Bush told The Post.

“Common sense would have shown that this targeted report plainly lacked credibility on its face,” Bush said. “Before children are separated from their families, due diligence should be exercised to ensure some nexus exists between the source and the family, or that the complaint comes from a reputable, reliable, or verifiable source. We have requested the Michigan State Police turn over all evidence at the completion of their investigation and will zealously investigate all leads, policies and procedures that allowed for such a flagrant violation of the Buttigiegs’ privacy.”

Officials at Michigan and Indiana state police departments and child welfare authorities declined to answer questions about what, if any, steps they took to verify the allegations before contacting Buttigieg.

Thompson-Phillips did not respond to a specific question about why state police waited six days to request information from Indiana authorities about the complainant.

Ron Green, a spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Child Services, said the agency followed “established procedures,” including not sharing information about callers. He and Michigan child welfare authorities declined to comment specifically about the Buttigieg case.

After receiving a partially redacted copy of the Michigan State Police report that referenced a Facebook post by the caller, The Post was able to identify and contact the woman, who said she lived in Alabama. Public records show she has also lived in Indiana.

In a phone call, she was unable to answer basic questions about her accusations. She acknowledged that she made reports about Buttigieg to authorities but declined to say to whom.

The Post is not naming the woman because it was unclear whether she was fully aware that she was speaking to a media outlet on the record. When asked to corroborate her claims — with dates, documents and other specifics — she did not and accused the reporter of working with Buttigieg on a cover-up.

The Michigan State Police report redacts the complainant’s name and details of the allegation, but the woman’s comments to The Post align with what Buttigieg has recounted being told by authorities and nonpublic details in the police report, including that she met him in the small city of Florence, Alabama.

Michigan authorities had asked Buttigieg during their investigation if he had traveled to Florence at any time between 2021 and 2023, and his attorney confirmed to them that he had not after reviewing travel records.

The woman said a sergeant from the Indiana State Police had since called her and was “harassing” her. Indiana State Police spokesperson Ron Galaviz confirmed an ongoing investigation of an allegation of false reporting but said he was unable to comment further.

Thompson-Phillips, the Michigan State Police spokeswoman, said the agency is deferring to Indiana to identify the accuser and will then “evaluate whether any charges are appropriate.”

How the Buttigieg investigation unfolded

Authorities must balance taking child abuse allegations seriously with preventing misuse of the reporting system, the spokesperson for the Michigan attorney general’s office said. The office’s investigation into Buttigieg’s case also aims to reduce the risk of false allegations of child abuse “against other well-known residents and elected officials as the newest form of threat or intimidation,” the spokesperson said.

Under Indiana law, anyone who suspects a child has been abused is required to make a report, and the Department of Child Services must initiate an assessment within 24 hours. In Michigan, a Children’s Protective Services investigation “must begin within 24 hours” of a report, and usually includes face-to-face interviews with the alleged victims and perpetrators, plus a viewing of the child’s home.

Buttigieg’s case involved extra complications with multiple agencies across two states. Their interactions and information sharing are partially detailed in the Michigan State Police report.

Indiana police officials learned about the woman’s call on June 22. They notified Michigan authorities on June 23, prompting a Michigan State Police trooper and child welfare official to visit Buttigieg later that day.

In his Substack post, Buttigieg said that he was not told the details of the allegations against him, and that he was told to stay at a hotel or send his children to stay with relatives until they could be interviewed the next day. Buttigieg and his husband, who was not accused of wrongdoing, made the decision to send the 4-year-old twins to their grandparents. The children sat alone for separate, hour-long interviews with investigators on June 24 and told investigators they felt safe, according to police records.

An Indiana child welfare worker contacted the caller again before referring the case to Michigan, reports show, but gained no new information. Those reports do not detail any further attempts by Indiana or Michigan police officials to vet the tip before the visit to Buttigieg.

When Michigan investigators interviewed Buttigieg, they told him they did not have the name of the person who made allegations against him, according to Buttigieg and the police records.

On June 26, Buttigieg went public, and Michigan State Police publicly said the allegation against him was false.

On June 29, a week after the initial tip, a Michigan child welfare worker told a Michigan State Police official that Indiana police informed her that the possible person who reported the allegation was a “mentally unstable woman in Indiana.”

That’s when the reports show that Michigan State Police contacted their Indiana counterparts to get the caller’s identity, and an Indiana investigator said they would try to interview her to verify the allegations and determine if she made a false report.

Indiana State Police did not answer The Post’s questions about the claim the accuser was mentally unstable. The woman did not respond to a question about this description of her.

“This case highlights everything that is wrong with a system of reporting and investigating where no one has accountability,” said Dale Margolin Cecka, professor of law and director of Albany Law’s Family Violence Litigation Clinic. “And a family is traumatized because of it.”

Under an ideal system, Cecka said, Indiana authorities would have better vetted the caller and shared the identity of the tipster with Michigan, who should have done their own vetting and declined to act on an anonymous allegation.

An Indiana state investigator looked into the caller and reported finding a Facebook post in which the caller urged people not to vote for Buttigieg and referenced her accusation weeks before she contacted authorities, according to the Michigan report, which does not say when the post was found. In other social media posts viewed by The Post, the woman praised other Democrats.

The woman told The Post that she decided to contact authorities about Buttigieg because she was worried about his children and his presidential ambitions. She declined to say why she waited years to report her allegations. The police report said she told the Indiana child welfare worker she did not know why she waited.

Meanwhile, Buttigieg said in his Substack post that he is grappling with what the ordeal means for his family and his country.

“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,” he wrote. “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.”

Following his unsuccessful run for president prior to the 2020 election, Buttigieg and his family moved to Traverse City, Michigan, and he served as Secretary of Transportation under the Biden administration.