The Buttigieg Files

Multiple scandals from his South Bend days have never been fully addressed

The Fucking News holds the powerful accountable. Becoming a paid subscriber helps to keep our original reporting and mordant aggregation accessible to all.

---

The office of then-Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, IN, on some date in 2019 that the photographer apparently didn’t bother to write down. (Me / It was me who took the photo for TYT.)

Caution: This post contains critical reporting about a guy everyone loves. I know, I know, I’m sorry! I am prepared to accept the inevitable subscription cancellations, but if you hold that critical reporting of Democrats = support for Donald Trump, you’ve come to the wrong place. At TFN, critical reporting is part of democracy’s immune system. It can hurt politicians, but it can also prompt them to improve. Journalism isn’t about pursuing outcomes, it’s about empowering readers to do so.

Five years ago, I was called homophobic and/or obsessed with then-Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, IN. The evidence was that I focused almost entirely on Buttigieg for about a year while working for The Young Turks (TYT).

The way journalism works is that if you invest time and source-development into a beat, you stay with it as long as it’s paying off with good stories. To whatever extent I was obsessed, that passed once the stories (and his candidacy) did. I moved on. These days, The Lever owns the Buttigieg beat. (Me, I’m now “obsessed” with prayer breakfasts and anti-LGBTQ+ shadow diplomacy, as it so happens.)

Now that I’m not reporting on Buttigieg, I can say freely that he’s obviously an admirable figure. He’s an effective and lacerating Democratic voice at hearings, on Fox, and in his appearance on Real Time last week.

It took guts and integrity and giving-a-shit-about-others to come out while serving as an Indiana mayor. I was privately impressed with his early willingness to champion progressive causes and policies.

Because I was reporting for TYT, I knew that much of what I unearthed would get ignored by mainstream outlets, and that I would likely resurface my old reporting when Buttigieg re-emerged as a potential holder of political office.

Buttigieg is now being floated as a potential running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris. But before I recap my Buttigieg reporting on Buttigieg, it’s worth addressing the floatation device in question.

Adam Wren is a longtime reporter on Indiana politics. He’s well-connected to Buttigieg World. On Sunday night, Wren wrote for Politico that Buttigieg’s Real Time appearance:

“…sparked talk privately among high-ranking Democrats that [JD] Vance’s fellow millennial, Midwesterner and Ivy Leaguer who won Iowa in 2020 could be a formidable addition to the ticket — particularly as an asset for the Harris campaign in Michigan, on Fox News, and on the VP debate stage.”

Typically, one might expect that kind of news to come from reporters who routinely break news sourced to high-ranking Democrats.

“‘Any convo about the ticket has to include someone like Pete,’ said a former Biden White House official,” Wren wrote, without saying how former or how high-ranking.

Yesterday, Wren reported that unnamed “senior Democrats have floated” Buttigieg, who, Wren writes, “has offered some of the party’s most potent messaging on Trump’s VP pick.”

Wren does have a Buttigiegian source in his Sunday piece, an unnamed “longtime Buttigieg supporter” who gives Wren the scoop that “I think Pete understands the gravity of this moment for the future of the American experiment and would want to do anything he could to support the Democratic ticket.”

This is how these things work. Sure enough, Newseek picked up Wren’s reporting, promoting the one (1) former White House source to multiple current “White House sources” and promoting Buttigieg to a “strong” candidate in White House eyes:

“White House officials quoted by Politico said Buttigieg is considered a strong candidate against Donald Trump's running mate.”

Other outlets just…asserted…that Buttigieg “has a shot,” without bothering to substantiate it. Last night, Rachel Maddow asked Buttigieg whether he’d accept.

And, yeah, maybe Buttigieg has a shot! But if that’s the case, then people should probably know what I uncovered about Buttigieg’s mayoralty in my Year of Living South Bendishly. So, a quick summary of which stories I reported when, with links if you want the whole articles.

Campaign-Finance Records

April 9, 2019 In accordance with Indiana law, county officials destroyed the campaign-finance filings of Buttigieg’s first mayoral race. The Buttigieg presidential campaign did not respond to requests to release his copies.

Buttigieg Police Issues Emerge

April 21, 2019 I reported on a legal settlement requiring a fired South Bend police employee to keep quiet about what she heard years earlier on secret police tapes, after she told local media that the tapes revealed “serious acts of misconduct,” “racially derogatory statements,” and “schemes” to get Buttigieg to put people in power at the department, including by replacing the city’s first Black police chief.

Buttigieg said publicly that he demoted the chief in 2012 for failing to tell Buttigieg about the tapes after learning about them from the police employee.

Also, Buttigieg allegedly fired a city attorney for failing to deep-six a state police investigation of the chief Buttigieg ultimately appointed instead.

Teen Hanging

April 23, 2019 Former South Bend Tribune reporter Jeff Harrell reported for TYT that the mother of Jiha’d Vasquez had asked Buttigieg for help after officials ruled her Black teenaged son’s 2011 hanging death a suicide. Buttigieg gave her his card with his office number, but never took her calls, despite multiple discrepancies in the investigation.

Secret State Police Report

May 30, 2019 Leaked portions of an Indiana State Police (ISP) report showed that Buttigieg lied about what was in it. Buttigieg had found his own replacement for the city’s first Black police chief. The newcomer was white, and was accused of abandoning a Black lieutenant in a dangerous situation. Buttigieg had publicly claimed that the ISP report, which he refused to release, exonerated his new chief. As the leaked excerpt showed, the opposite was true.

The incident became public after a Black reverend who witnessed it raised it at a Common Council meeting because, he said, he told Buttigieg about it and no action was taken.

Black Suspect Killed

June 18, 2019 A South Bend Police Dept. cop who shot and killed a Black suspect had a history of racism accusations.

Buttigieg’s Donors

Aug. 8, 2019 Despite Buttigieg refusing to release his earliest mayoral campaign-finance filings, I unearthed some copies. In joint reporting with the Center for Public Integrity, we revealed lobbyists and special interests who had donated to him. That’s not especially unusual, but one donor in particular would figure importantly into later reporting.

Documents Say Police Used Buttigieg Donors

Sept. 16, 2019 Previously secret South Bend documents confirm that police were unknowingly recorded on official phone lines discussing having Buttigieg’s backers get him to remove Chief Darryl Boykins, the city’s first Black police chief. Despite Buttigieg’s public claims that he didn’t even know whether he could legally ask people who heard the tapes what was on them, the documents showed that his lawyers had secretly done just that. One officer is quoted in the documents as saying he spoke with Buttigieg and that “Boykins is done.”

Additional Documents Expose Buttigieg Falsehoods

Sept. 30, 2019 City documents released in response to public-records requests confirm that Buttigieg’s lawyers had specific, detailed information about the contents of the police tapes that he had said publicly he did not have. Buttigieg’s campaign maintained, falsely, that his lawyers could ask questions that he legally couldn’t. The documents include testimony from then-Chief of Staff Mike Schmuhl, who reveals that he told Buttigieg about the secret tapes — refuting Buttigieg’s public claim that he only learned about them from the FBI, after the cops who’d been taped asked the bureau to look into the phone taping practices. Although Buttigieg said he removed Boykins as chief for failing to tell him about the investigation, Boykins himself was last to learn of it.

In Buttigieg’s book, he wrote that he “did not see coming” the reports that officers on the tapes discussed Boykins in racist terms. But Schmuhl testified that he had previously alerted Buttigieg of their “derogatory and disrespectful” language toward Boykins. 

Schmuhl also contradicts Buttigieg’s public suggestion that if he hadn’t removed Boykins and the fired police employee, federal prosecutors would’ve charge them for secretly taping officers. Schmuhl testified that federal prosecutors said nothing about charging them.

In his autobiography, Buttigieg implies that prosecutors didn’t want the political heat of removing Boykins and so manipulated him into doing it. Boykins’ attorney told me the lead prosecutor said that Boykins was not in legal jeopardy. According to the city’s secret documents, the fired police employee said the lead prosecutor told her, too, that she could keep her job and not be charged.

Black Officers Ignored

Jan. 8, 2020 The Root’s Michael Harriot and I collaborated on reporting about many Black officers, including some of high rank, writing to Buttigieg for help with systemic racism within the police department. Buttigieg never responded to them. Questioned by Vice about our reporting, Buttigieg said he was letting the system handle their complaints, even though their complaint was that the system was racist.

AP Confirmation

Jan. 16, 2020 The AP confirmed much of my previous reporting. Addressing Buttigieg’s narrative, the AP writes that the facts “paint a more complicated picture that is not as flattering to Buttigieg.”

The AP was the only outlet that came close to eating my lunch on the Buttigieg beat. For years, the story had been that South Bend Fire Chief Howard Buchanon simply retired when Buttigieg came into office. Scarfing down at least half my hoagie, the AP got Buchanon to tell them that the reason he retired was that Buttigieg chose someone to replace him.

South Bend Fire

Feb. 3, 2020 Buchanon and former firefighters union head Kenny Marks, who are both Black, gave me details about helping Buttigieg win Black votes.

The old, unearthed campaign-finance records showed that Buttigieg’s replacement for Buchanon was the stepson of a Republican fundraiser. Buttigieg’s new fire chief had less experience than Buchanon and two Hispanic candidates. He was also childhood friends of Schmuhl, Buttigieg’s chief of staff.

Both Buchanon and Marks helped Buttigieg win the mayoralty because they thought he’d help them. Marks was voted out as union head for endorsing Buttigieg, who had promised Marks transparency, diversity, and inclusion. “He fooled me,” Marks said.

Buttigieg essentially ghosted the city’s top Black mayoral aide when he came into office. All told, Buttigieg effectively pushed out the city’s top three Black officials.

Cops Break Their Silence

Feb. 20, 2020 After years of silence, the five South Bend police officers at the heart of the tapes scandal tell me their stories, which I recount in a three-part series. In the first installment, some confirmed having spoken with Buttigieg’s donors and the then-mayoral candidate himself. They deny racist intent or language but some say they wanted Boykins out.

One denies that they or any donors could tell Buttigieg what to do, citing the fact that none of their preferred candidates replaced Boykins. That said, an internal email showed one of the donors lobbying Buttigieg on behalf of a mayoral chief of staff candidate who got the job two weeks later.

Buttigieg Could Have Prevented the Whole Tapes Mess

Feb. 24, 2020 In the second installment, some of the cops said that Buttigieg could’ve prevented the entire tapes scandal if he had just stopped the taping. They said that’s all they asked for. And they confirmed that Buttigieg knew about the federal investigation before Boykins did — because the cops first asked the mayor’s office to stop the taping.

In fact, the cops only reported the taping system to the feds because Buttigieg refused not to act. The investigation that Buttigieg blamed for Boykins’ removal, in other words, only happened because Buttigieg didn’t deal with the taping himself. Despite Buttigieg claiming he only learned of the investigation from the FBI, he actually knew beforehand that the cops would go to the FBI. And while he complained publicly that Boykins didn’t tell him about it, Buttigieg himself didn’t tell Boykins about it.

Why Buttigieg Didn’t Deal with the Tapes Himself

Feb. 29, 2020 In the final installment, Buttigieg’s reason for not managing the tapes situation became clear. Buttigieg used to say that he was rarely asked why he kept Boykins on in the first place, when he became mayor. But in his book he wrote that he opted to “save” police reforms for later. In other words, he always planned to remove Boykins at some point.

One insider told me that the federal investigation “gave Pete the green light to fire the police chief, but he had wanted to fire the police chief since the beginning.” They knew he had, because Buttigieg told them he had.

---

So, a couple points, does all of this mean I don’t want Buttigieg to get the veep nod? Again, not how journalism works! If I did the same degree of reporting on the other possibles, maybe I could make a comparison. That’s not what this is about. It’s solely about ensuring that people have as much information as possible.

Schmuhl, for instance, just told the South Bend Tribune that Buttigieg has been “vetted.” But Buttigieg has never been pressed publicly to account for 90% of this. And, for what it’s worth, it’s quite plausible that the other possible candidates have scandals lurking in their past, as well.

So, the point of resurfacing this isn’t to make people feel a particular way about Buttigieg. It’s to let folks know this is out there, which might benefit Buttigieg and the Dems, and — just maybe — lead to some overdue answers.

TCB

If TFN’s commentary and reporting are of some value to you, please consider supporting TFN with a paid subscription or one-time donation.

And if you’re sharing TFN on your socials, please tag me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, Spoutible, Threads. I see you, appreciate you, and love you, my glorious fellow Newsfuckers.

Go get ‘em, kids.