Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office has opened an investigation into thefalse Child Protective Services reportthat led to former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg being temporarily separated from his children in June, with a spokesperson for the department calling the incident a “flagrant violation of the Buttigiegs’ privacy.”
Kimberly Bush, director of the Office of Public Information and Education for the Michigan Department of Attorney General, confirmed that the investigation has been opened “into this malicious act not only to look into the potential unlawful conduct but also to mitigate the risk that this act could trigger copy-cat acts against other well-known residents and elected officials as the newest form of threat or intimidation.”
Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind. who gained national attention in his 2020 presidential run, is openly gay, married to his husband Chasten, and the two have four-year-old twins.
The CPS tip came from an anonymous caller who said that he had spoken to a woman who said she had met Buttigieg at a conference several years prior in Alabama and that he had told her that he “had committed unspeakable violent crimes,” Buttigieg recounted in aSubstack postabout the incident. He continued to say that he had never been to the town where the woman claimed she had met him.
“The officer made clear that he believed this was politically motivated, and said it would not be referred to a prosecutor,” Buttigeig wrote, calling the incident “among the darkest hours of my life.”
Bush said that due diligence must be exercised in instances like this, before children are separated from their families, to ensure that a legitimate connection exists between the person reporting the incident and the family, or that the complaint comes from a reputable, reliable, or verifiable source.
She added that “common sense would have shown that this targeted report plainly lacked credibility on its face.”
Erin Stover, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which CPS falls under, said that the department will “fully cooperate regarding any investigation of CPS or any other bureau or administration under review within the agency.”
“Protecting the safety and well-being of Michigan’s children is one of our most critical responsibilities at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services,” she said.
The Department of the Attorney General has also requested that the Michigan State Police turn over all evidence at the completion of their investigation.
“Whenever any resident of the State of Michigan, be it a former cabinet secretary, local elected official, or your neighbor is wrongly and unjustly impacted by a false report of child abuse or neglect, that is a potential felony violation under Michigan law, and one we take seriously,” Bush wrote.
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