UPDATE: As we suspected, this was a bogus claim and has now been withdrawn by the accuser himself.

Presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg is facing a potential #MeToo scandal after a Michigan man accused Buttigieg of sexually assaulting him.

Buttigieg has come out of nowhere to surge to third place in some polls, with some calling him “the improbable early star of the 2020 Democrat presidential contest.”

However, a 21-year-old man named Hunter Kelly posted a short article to Medium in which he accuses Buttigieg of sexually assaulting him in February.

“I was sexually assaulted by Mayor Pete Buttigieg. I didn’t know who he was back in February, only that he told me he was an important politician. When I started seeing him on television three weeks ago as a Presidential candidate, I thought about coming forward,” writes Kelly, adding, “This is by far the hardest thing I have ever had to do.”

Pete Buttigieg Sexually Assaulted Mehttps://t.co/LTd1XmE0gy

— Hunter Kelly (@realHunterKelly) April 29, 2019

“I am a gay man. I have been grappling with my identity for a number of years. I live, work, and attend college in rural Michigan. I know that by coming forward, I will make a hard life even harder. But I must do so – I must do so – for my country, for other gay men like me, and most importantly to stop a very bad man from becoming President of the United States,” he writes.

Kelly concludes by saying that he has contemplated suicide, while vowing that his full story will be told “in the days and weeks ahead”.

Given that the accusation comes with little detail, it doesn’t appear to hold much weight.

However, since the birth of the #MeToo movement and the narrative of “believe all victims,” accusation alone is now sometimes enough to cause major headaches for public figures.

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