The House Ethics Committee is investigating Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) over allegations that she may have engaged in “improper reimbursement practices” and violated House rules.
In a statement Monday, the committee said it had received a referral from the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Conduct (OCC), which reviews allegations of misconduct against members of Congress. The OCC’s board wrote in a report that there is “substantial reason to believe” Mace “engaged in improper reimbursement practices” and recommended further review by the committee.
According to the report, Mace’s reimbursement requests exceeded her total Washington, D.C., property expenses during several months in 2023 and 2024, “amounting to an excess of 9,485.46.”
The Washington Post had also reported in 2024 that Mace, “who co-owns a $1,649,000 Capitol Hill townhouse she purchased in 2021 with her then-fiancé, Patrick Bryant, expensed a total of $27,817 in 2023, an average of more than $2,300 a month,” according to congressional data. She had expensed more than $3,000 for lodging in January, March and May, the Post reported.
Mace claimed in a statement then that she had incurred more than $100,000 in lodging expenses in D.C. and had received about $29,000 after taxes in reimbursements. (RELATED: Nancy Mace Seeks To Subpoena Bill Gates Over Epstein Files)
“Do the math,” Mace said in her statement. “Bryant is terrified he might go to jail. And if he does, my female constituents will be safer for it. This just goes to show how broken the system is when a predator can viciously go after his victims in this way and is permitted to do so regardless of the facts.”
Mace’s office said in a fiery statement that the congresswoman is not taking the ethics complaint “seriously.”
“As Speaker Johnson famously said last week when a Member sexually harassed his staffer until she lit herself on fire and died: ‘It’s too early for anybody to prejudge any of that,’” Mace’s office said in the statement, referring to allegations that Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) had an affair with a staffer who later killed herself.
“Same standard. Same bar. Congress should seriously examine whether a partisan OCC that retaliates against women and ignores its own evidentiary standards deserves to exist at all,” the office added.
The chairman and ranking member of the House Ethics Committee said in a joint statement that the panel has “extended its review of the matter.”
READ NEXT: Jasmine Crockett Under Fire After Kicking Journalist Out Of Campaign Event
