Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday that his family was targeted by a false child welfare report that led authorities to temporarily separate him from his 4-year-old twins, calling the experience one of the darkest moments of his life and warning that political hostility has reached a dangerous level.

In a Substack post titled "A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family," Buttigieg said an anonymous report prompted a Michigan State Police officer and a Child Protective Services worker to visit his home in Traverse City earlier this week.

Authorities later determined the allegations were unfounded.

According to Buttigieg, investigators required him and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, to remain separated from their children for about 24 hours while the claims were investigated.

Their twins, Penelope and Gus, also underwent forensic interviews as part of the inquiry.

"For twenty-four deeply distressing hours, we had no idea what I was accused of or what was about to happen," Buttigieg wrote. "We could not understand someone abusing the system like this in order to hurt me and my family."

Michigan State Police confirmed receiving an anonymous report and said investigators, along with Child Protective Services, determined it was false.

"The Michigan State Police and Child Protective Services responded and determined the report was false," department spokesperson Shanon Banner said in a statement. Banner added that false reports divert law enforcement and child welfare workers from legitimate emergencies.

Buttigieg said the anonymous caller claimed to have spoken with a woman who said she had met him years earlier at a conference in Alabama, where he allegedly confessed to committing violent crimes.

Buttigieg said he had never attended the conference or met the woman described by the caller, calling the allegations "a cruel, politically motivated hoax."

The former Cabinet secretary likened the incident to "swatting," in which false emergency reports are made to trigger police responses, but said this case instead turned the child welfare system against him and his family for political reasons.

"I don't know who did this, or exactly what prompted them to try," Buttigieg wrote.

He noted the incident occurred shortly after he and his husband shared Father's Day photos of their family on social media and during Pride Month, but said he could not be certain whether those events were connected.

Buttigieg praised the professionalism of the responding officer and child welfare worker while condemning the person who filed the report. He said he hopes the episode draws attention to the harm caused by false allegations that consume public resources and inflict lasting trauma on families.

"We got our family back together," Buttigieg wrote.

"But no family should have to endure what ours did because someone decided to weaponize a system intended to protect children."