Part of: Mace Federal Removal (Berg v. Bryant → D.S.C.) · House Ethics Committee Investigation of Rep. Nancy Mace (OCC Review 25-5681) · Berg v. Bryant (and Bryant's Third-Party Complaint against Mace) · Mace v. Bowman · Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg · Musgrave v. Mace (2:25-cv-01823-RMG) · Mace v. Bryant · Litigation Overview & Court-Filing Index
Mace's own defamation complaint puts her House-floor accusations, and the men's furious replies, into the public record
Suing Eric Bowman for defamation on May 12, 2025, Mace's complaint confirms she 'identified four individuals' from the House floor and reproduces, verbatim, the very accusations she calls false, including claims she steered VA contracts and 'destroy[ed] innocent men with zero evidence, zero charges.'
On May 12, 2025, Nancy Mace filed a defamation complaint against Eric Bernard Bowman in Charleston County (No. 2025-CP-10-02733). The suit is Mace's, and its allegations are hers. But by attaching Bowman's posts as exhibits and quoting them in the body, the complaint placed both her House-floor conduct and the accusations against her into a public court record.
On the floor speech, Mace's own pleading states:
"On February 10, 2025, Rep. Mace … gave a powerful speech from the House floor. In delivering this speech, Rep. Mace identified herself as the victim of sexual violence and assault … During her speech, Rep. Mace identified four individuals whom she understood to have taken part in or been aware of wrongdoing."
The complaint then reproduces the statements by Bowman that Mace alleges are false and defamatory. (They are Bowman's contentions, quoted by Mace so she can sue over them; nothing here treats them as true.) Among the posts the complaint quotes:
"@NancyMace has engaged in illegal hacking, disseminating classified information, embezzling public funds, and steering VA contracts to her close associates … blackmailed, conspired, and lied to law enforcement."
"Just as she betrayed [Speaker McCarthy], [Nikki Haley], her ex-staffers, her own sister, her ex-fiancé, and her former chief of staff, Daniel Hanlon … she's now destroying innocent men with zero evidence, zero charges."
The complaint also quotes Bowman tying Mace to specific VA contractors and asking, on the day of a Harvard appearance, that she be confronted with: "What contracts did you assist [a named VA contractor] in securing in your role as a member of the VA Technology Subcommittee?" and "How much money hit your account in February and why was it the same week you went public with your sex claims?" Mace's complaint flatly rejects the substance of all of it as "objectively and demonstrably false."
Two points the filing makes unavoidable for Mace. First, her own complaint confirms she used congressional floor privilege to name private individuals ("identified four individuals") in connection with alleged crimes. Second, to sue over Bowman's words she had to enter them into the record, so the lawsuit she chose to bring is itself the reason the accusations are now a permanent, searchable public document. Bowman denies liability and contends his statements are protected; that dispute is unresolved.
Source: Congresswoman Nancy R. Mace v. Eric Bernard Bowman, Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, No. 2025-CP-10-02733, Complaint (Defamation Per Se), filed May 12, 2025. Public record via the S.C. Judicial Branch Public Index. See also Eric Bowman.
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November 5, 2025 · DispatchMace announces intent to sue: 'SUING FOR DEFAMATION!!'
On Nov. 5, 2025, Rep. Nancy Mace announced she had retained attorney Larry Klayman and intended to sue the Charleston Airport, American Airlines, and others for allegedly falsifying incident reports after her Oct. 30 confrontation. As of June 2026, no complaint had been filed in any court.
August 18, 2025 · Dispatch'Recuse themselves': Mace's official press release demands the prosecutor's removal and a state investigation into her
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June 27, 2025 · DispatchMace's own motion shows she signed a quitclaim deed to her ex-fiancé on Feb. 13, 2025, three days after accusing him of crimes on the House floor
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October 11, 2026 · DispatchBrian Musgrave Sued Nancy Mace. The Court Threw It Out.
Brian Musgrave, one of the four men Nancy Mace named in her February 10, 2025 House floor speech, filed two defamation suits. The first, against Mace, was dismissed with prejudice on August 20, 2025 after the United States was substituted for her under the Westfall Act; the judge wrote that 'Plaintiff has no civil remedy to hold accountable persons he believes have defamed him' and that the court 'offers no opinion concerning the truthfulness or the lack of truthfulness' of her allegations. The second, against OAN's parent company and the Louder with Crowder podcast, produced a September 30, 2026 order: the parent company was dismissed without prejudice for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the podcast defendants won summary judgment because their statements were not susceptible to a defamatory meaning as to Musgrave. Neither court decided whether Mace's accusations are true. Musgrave denies them. Mace denies wrongdoing.
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Nancy Mace has lost in federal court. On September 4, 2026, U.S. District Judge Bruce H. Hendricks rejected her pro se bid to move the case out of state court, ruling her removal untimely 'by several measures,' and remanded Berg v. Bryant to the Charleston County Court of Common Pleas. That sends Patrick Bryant's third-party case against Mace forward in state court, a case that accuses her of defamation and of a civil conspiracy to hack his phone and blackmail him into signing over property. The Court affirmed the magistrate judge's recommendation with modifications, overruled Mace's objections, denied her motion for oral argument, and terminated her duplicate federal case as moot. The ruling is procedural: it does not reach the merits, and Mace's immunity defenses travel with the case. The order (ECF No. 36) is reproduced below. The allegations are disputed and unproven; Mace denies Bryant's claims, and Bryant denies Mace's.