Three months ago, Nancy Mace’s office was in disarray.
The Republican congresswoman laid off or lost nine employees from her Washington, D.C., office in three months, and many of them criticized her in the media on her way out.
Now, the South Carolina lawmaker has responded dramatically, accusing former aides of sabotage in an extraordinary interview with DailyMail.com.
Mace, 46, says the deceased employees mismanaged $1 million, hacked into his phone, spied on his medical records and even submerged electronic devices in water and deleted files to cover their tracks.
The mother of two claims that they even went so far as to spy on her children’s calendars and monitor doctor’s appointments.
Nancy Mace says her new staff is still repairing the damage left by her ‘sabotaging’ former assistants
‘I knew they were sabotaging the office for a while. I didn’t know to what extent they were doing it,” Mace exclusively told DailyMail.com in an interview at his Capitol Hill home.
His new team is still trying to repair the damage, he said.
‘I knew they were sabotaging the office for a while. I didn’t know to what extent they were doing it,” Mace told DailyMail.com in an interview at her Capitol Hill home, which is at the center of a dispute between her and her ex-fiancé.
‘They were signing my name on documents they didn’t have permission for; one of them submerged his electronic devices underwater so we couldn’t access his files. They deleted files, some of them deleted files from our server, so there was no documentation for the new staff that were arriving.’
In December, the congresswoman fired her chief of staff, Dan Hanlon, then her deputy chief of staff, Richard Chalkey, and legislative director Randal Meyer resigned. By February, a total of nine employees had left the office.
Mace continued, “We had another former employee who leaked the names of new employees we were hiring so he could write negative stories about them.”
“We even had some interns quit because the old staff were threatening them, threatening that they would never get a job on the hill if they worked in my office.”
Mace said she had another former staff member hack into her devices and track her for nine months.
‘They could literally see where I was at all times. They could see my kids’ calendars, my doctor appointments, my medical information.’
“The stories I have from some of my former staff are horrible and were a massive invasion of my privacy.”
But not only that, he said.
Mace continued, “We had another former staff member who leaked the names of new employees we were hiring so he could write negative stories about them.”
“We are finding thousands of dollars in bills that were not paid,” the congresswoman continued. “Paperwork that wasn’t supposed to be filed.”
Mace was infuriated to discover that his staff had left nearly a million dollars on the table in his office budget. “It was $400,000 in 2022 and about half a million in 2023,” he said.
“It’s our job to run our office, be fiscally responsible, but use everything we have to communicate our services to constituents,” he said.
‘If people don’t know, hey, you didn’t get your IRS refund in 2020, we’ll help you, or if you need an appointment at the VA, you’ve waited six months and you need help. , we will get that appointment for you. Heck, I’ll even call the DMV if you can’t get into the DMV.
“That money could also have gone towards salaries and bonuses, especially if you’re a beginner, it’s very difficult to survive in DC,” he continued. “It was really scandalous.”
It is unclear who exactly burned the bridge as personnel left en masse. Mace claims that her former staff was plotting against her and has found relief in a new group of helpers she can trust. But former Mace employees have described a “toxic” work environment.
A source familiar with the office’s daily operations responded: ‘The swamp has really taken a toll on Nancy Mace. A “fiscally conservative” congresswoman is upset because her staff saved her constituents money?
Any money not spent in an office’s budget returns to the Treasury.
‘I guess she never understood that the office budget is not a personal bank account. Ask her mentor, Senator Paul. Every year she sends unspent funds to the Treasury to pay off the debt. Rep. Mace would rather spend tax money on vanity items than give a penny back to the American people.
Two former employees blamed Mace for not approving a $400,000 mailing program in 2022 by the deadline.
They denied that their personal devices had been hacked and said it was standard routine for elected officials to share their personal calendars with staff.
‘I had a personal calendar, a political calendar and an official calendar. These three calendars were managed and shared with senior staff so we could run daily operations. Nobody hacked their accounts. She prepared them all.
“She would routinely try to revoke access and say, ‘you can’t see my calendar anymore’ for a couple of weeks.” And you know what? We couldn’t do our job.
“This appears to be due to paranoia and trust issues,” said another former employee. “He is clearly not well and I hope he gets help.”
“Everything the staff had access to was granted by her.”
The former assistant claimed the “submerged device” allegation arose from a staff member dropping water on his computer and taking it to the technical team. “This wasn’t espionage or anything.”
As for signing his name without his permission, “you’re talking about something ordinary, every office has a member’s hand stamp.” This is a seal that she had ordered our team to use for administrative tasks that she did not want to be bothered with.’
After former Chief Dan Hanlon left office, he launched a brief primary campaign against her, supported by other former aides.
Mace has become a fixture on cable news since her election in 2020, by design, according to former employees who say she was “obsessed” with media attention.
The 46-year-old mother of two was stunned in May 2022 when her businessman boyfriend Patrick Bryant got down on one knee and asked her if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
“It all started with media attention,” a source familiar with the office told DailyMail.com. ‘We were free to push the legislative agenda. She didn’t intervene in the process, which is great for a staff member. She was more focused on appearing on Fox News.
Mace responded: ‘Some people say I do it for TV interviews, but I turn down more than I actually do. So that’s not really consistent. People say I’m a flip-flop, but no one can tell which flip-flop. Literally no one.’
‘I get nothing from [doing TV]. In fact, I feel more sorry. I mean, I get death threats every time I go on television.
He scoffed at the suggestion that he was only focused on media attention and said it was all part of his relentless ambition to excel at work.
‘I work very hard. I work seven days a week for the fields,” she said, muttering that he had barely slept a wink the night before.
She speaks passionately about her two favorite topics: women’s rights, whether through moderate abortion laws or IVF protections, and gun violence prevention measures that don’t involve restricting the Second Amendment, such as alerts Amber for mass shootings.
Rep. Nancy Mace and her fiancé (left) split up while her office was in disarray. Revelations about their separation came to light when the staff left.
“It’s insulting to think that I can only be good at one thing and I try to do good in all things,” she added. And that means I’m married to a job. That means I don’t have a life.’
‘I just saved 1,000 jobs at a defense contractor in my district. Time and time again, the kind of infrastructure projects that need expedited permits, I’ve done it. We’ve done a lot for the district.’
She even voted to unseat former President Kevin McCarthy when he followed through on promises he reportedly made to introduce bills related to women’s issues and mass shooting prevention in the House of Representatives.
“I have worked steadily to develop a portfolio of laws related to women’s and girls’ issues, to protect victims and protect their rights.”
He continued: ‘As Republicans, I think we find it difficult to communicate messages about gun violence. You don’t have to sacrifice your principles to say: we want to keep our children safe. “It shouldn’t be controversial to say we don’t want our children shot.”
