A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family

Even in today's climate, there should be one fundamental principle everyone respects: whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave their kids alone.

Someone decided to hurt our family this week. I’m furious, and I want to share what happened.

You’ve probably heard of “swatting.” It’s a cruel and dangerous kind of hoax that has started happening more frequently in recent years. Someone anonymously calls 911 with a false report of imminent danger, such as a hostage situation, at the home of a public figure. Law enforcement swarms the house, guns drawn, terrifying the unsuspecting homeowner and family and sometimes even leading to deaths or injuries in the confusion. It’s happened to dozens of lawmakers, judges, celebrities, and others. (When I was in the Cabinet, someone attempted to do this to our home, but fortunately the hoax was quickly detected.) It’s become enough of a problem that the FBI now has a dedicated database to track such incidents.

Now imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team. Hadn’t thought of that? Me neither, until a few days ago when a police officer and a CPS worker showed up at our home and politely asked to speak with me.

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.

The twenty-four hours until they returned are among the darkest hours of my life. I tried to get my head around the idea that I had been accused of something so serious that I couldn’t be alone around my own children, and had consented to have them interviewed by strangers, without my knowing where the accusation had come from or even what it contained.

Many times over the years, I have been denounced, yelled at, protested, threatened, and heckled. I’ve been through political attacks in office, death threats in public life, and rocket attacks in war. But this is the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.

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.

After the officer spoke, the CPS worker likewise indicated she had not found anything to substantiate the allegation, though her process would take a bit longer to be formally completed. I no longer needed to avoid being around my children unsupervised. Chasten was invited to come back downstairs and hear the same information that had just been shared with me. Then, per standard procedure, she verified that there was adequate food in our kitchen and asked to take a look at the kids’ bedroom.

After the officer, the CPS worker, and the lawyers all left, Chasten and I hugged each other as tightly as we have any time since the day our son was put on life support as a critically ill infant just weeks after the adoption. We went to get the kids, had dinner with them and their grandparents, brought them home and gave them the most normal bedtime we could - with a few more bedtime books than usual. Then we went and sat under the light at our kitchen table, trying to begin to process our feelings.

Everyone knows politics is ugly these days. It’s always been ugly, but now it feels more and more like bloodsport. Cruelty, lies, and even deadly violence have been directed at political figures across the ideological spectrum. Generally everyone agrees this has to stop, even as our country (and public figures) get all too used to it.

Even so, this is different. 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.

I am a reasonable man. I try to keep as calm and low-key as possible. But I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel at the idea that someone brought our children into this. They are four years old. Four. They do not know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is. They don’t know how politics works. They don’t know about hate. They should be worrying about what kind of ice cream they’re getting this afternoon, not why they are being brought into a meeting with a grownup asking strange questions or why their Papa is suddenly unavailable to read them a bedtime story. For God’s sake, they are just kids.

I don’t know who did this, or exactly what prompted them to try. It’s not lost on me that this happened soon after we shared photos of our family on social media for Father’s Day. Or that this occurred during a month meant to make families like ours feel welcome and safe. We’re used to nasty, hateful, and sometimes violent things being said about us and even about our family. But this is the first time someone managed to invade our lives like this - and drag our children into it.

To be clear, making a false report of this kind is a crime. That’s as it should be, both to protect the innocent from false accusations, and to preserve the integrity of a process designed to protect children from harm. I don’t know how much we can do about it, but so help me God, if there is any way to press civil or criminal charges over this, we will. Not just for our own sakes but to draw a line that I thought everyone already recognized: do not mess with someone’s kids.

Meanwhile, we will continue to do our work, supporting and speaking out for causes we believe in, according to our values. I’ll continue to stand up against the cruelty and corruption of the people in power today, and I’ll keep making the case for a better future in our country through a better kind of politics. We cannot let American politics keep going in this direction. And we must not all go on as if it’s acceptable for this kind of thing to be part of the cost of entering public service.

Most importantly, Chasten and I will continue to pour ourselves into the joyful and demanding work of raising and educating our two children. Being their parents is the best thing in our lives. They are just children, kids who deserve the best upbringing that their parents can provide, who mean more to us than anything, whom we love beyond words and will do anything to protect, and whose right to a safe and happy childhood deserves absolute and unconditional respect.