Chasten Buttigieg Say It’s Old News to Cover Pete’s Lengthy Paternity Leave After DOT Concealed It For A Year
- January 17, 2023
Tristan Justice, The Federalist
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, came to the couple’s defense last week over criticism of the department chief’s prolonged absence during a critical time for the federal agency.
In the fall of 2021, as Congress was putting together a trillion-dollar infrastructure package, a bottleneck supply-chain crisis on the West Coast threatened to spoil the holiday season. During that time, Secretary Buttigieg took an eight-week parental leave. Though 9 out of 10 new dads typically take leave, an overwhelming majority of them (70 percent) take 10 days or less.
Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Public’s Trust, which filed the request for records under the Freedom of Information Act, told The Federalist the documents were only released after the group filed a lawsuit. It filed the records request in December and was ultimately forced to sue for access in June last year.
The Department of Transportation is still stonewalling records requests on Secretary Buttigieg’s absence that The Federalist filed the same month Chamberlain’s group submitted theirs. The agency acknowledged the request on Dec. 3, 2021, but has since evaded compliance with the public transparency law despite a dozen follow-ups by phone and email.