Part of: The House Ethics reimbursement investigation (2025-2026) · House Ethics Committee Investigation of Rep. Nancy Mace (OCC Review 25-5681) · Musgrave v. Mace (2:25-cv-01823-RMG)
"Charges Are Not a Conviction": The Due-Process Standard Nancy Mace Keeps Only for Herself
In 2023, Nancy Mace voted against expelling George Santos, indicted on 23 federal counts, because 'charges are not a conviction.' Since then she has pushed a series of men to resign, moved to expel them, or named them 'predators' from the House floor, in every case before any charge was filed, and sometimes after a prosecutor or the accuser had already declined to pursue one. When the House Ethics Committee's own report landed on her, she asked for the very due process she denies them.
Nancy Mace applies one rule to accusations against the men she has decided to go after, and the opposite rule to accusations against herself. For them, the accusation is the verdict: resign now, be expelled, be branded a "predator" from the House floor, no charge required, and in Cory Mills's case after both the U.S. Attorney and the woman involved had already declined to pursue one. For herself, when the House Ethics Committee's own report landed on her desk, the rule became due process: a preliminary finding is not proof, and she has the right not to answer questions.
She cannot claim she does not understand the principle, because she has stated it herself, in defense of someone else. On December 1, 2023, the House voted 311 to 114 to expel Rep. George Santos, then under a 23-count federal indictment. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC-01) voted no and posted her reasoning on X:
"George Santos is an a--, who, like every other American, deserves the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law. Charges are not a conviction. Today's vote was not about accountability, which should have been in the hands of the courts and the people of NY-03. This was about shifting the balance of power in Congress, and I won't play those games."
She grants that presumption to herself and, as with Santos, to the colleagues it suits her to protect. She strips it from the men she has publicly condemned, every one of them named, pressed to resign, or moved against below before any charge was filed. What follows draws entirely on her own public statements and the public record. Where an accused man has denied the allegations, that is noted; where one has admitted part of them, that is noted too. Maceopedia takes no position on whether any underlying allegation is true. The subject is Mace's standard, and how it moves with the target.
George Santos, indicted on 23 federal counts, is the one man on this page Mace publicly defended. He "deserves the presumption of innocence until proven guilty," she wrote, and "charges are not a conviction." He was expelled anyway, and later pleaded guilty. Official U.S. House portrait.
Who she moved against, and when
Each man below was pressed to resign, targeted for expulsion, or named a "predator" by Mace before any criminal charge existed. The last two columns are the record as it stands today.
| Man | What Mace did | The allegation, and its status | Charged? | Convicted? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) | Moved to censure him (Nov 2025); filed a resolution to expel him (Apr 20, 2026) | A 2025 D.C. domestic-incident call, plus stolen-valor and campaign-finance accusations | No. D.C. police sought a warrant; the U.S. Attorney declined to charge; the woman involved said no assault occurred | No |
| Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) | Demanded he resign; after he did, said leaving "does not erase" the alleged acts (Apr 2026) | Four women, one a former staffer, alleged sexual misconduct including rape. He apologized for "mistakes in judgment" and denies the assault claims | No | No |
| Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) | Demanded he resign, calling the allegations "an abuse of power" (Feb 2026) | Explicit 2024 texts he sent a staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, who later died by suicide; a second staffer alleged he sought nude photos. He first claimed extortion, then admitted an affair | No | No |
| Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) | Said the allegations "must be investigated, and if true, he should resign" (Jul 29, 2026) | Ex-wife Emily Moreno's domestic-abuse allegations. Domestic violence, not a sexual-misconduct claim. He denies them | No | No |
| Eric Bowman | Named from the House floor as a "predator" (Feb 10, 2025) | Rape and sexual-abuse accusations described in her speech; he denies them | No charge for these allegations (see note below) | No |
| Patrick Bryant (her ex-fiance) | Named from the House floor (Feb 10, 2025) | Accusations described in her speech; he denies them | No. A SLED investigation opened Dec 2023; no charges filed | No |
| Brian Musgrave | Named from the House floor (Feb 10, 2025) | Accusations described in her speech; he denies them | No. SLED told him he is not a target | No |
| John Osborne | Named from the House floor (Feb 10, 2025) | Accusations described in her speech; he denies them | No. He faces a civil suit; no criminal charge | No |
One name that does not belong on the list, despite some coverage implying otherwise: Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). Reporting on Mace's July 2026 staffer-conduct bills cited a New York Post item about Gallego, but Mace did not name him, and no rule violation was alleged against him. He is a news hook for the legislation, not someone she accused.
The members of Congress
Cory Mills
Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL). D.C. police sought an arrest warrant after a 2025 domestic-incident call; the U.S. Attorney declined to charge, and the woman involved said no assault happened. Mace moved to expel him a year later. Official U.S. House portrait.
Mills is the clearest example of the gap between the accusation and the proof. In February 2025, D.C. police responded to a domestic-incident call involving him and reportedly asked prosecutors for an arrest warrant. The U.S. Attorney's office declined to bring any charge, and the woman involved publicly said no assault had occurred.
Mace pursued him anyway. She first moved to censure Mills in November 2025, confronting him on the House floor and telling him, "You're a disgrace." Then, on April 20, 2026, hours after it was reported that Mills was preparing his own resolution to expel her, she filed one to expel him, citing sexual-misconduct, stolen-valor, campaign-finance and federal-contracting accusations. "The swamp has protected Cory Mills for far too long," she said. The House referred her resolution to the Ethics Committee, which has been examining Mills separately since 2024. Mills has called Mace "a hypocrite who abuses her power." No charge has been filed against him, and there is no conviction.
Eric Swalwell
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) resigned in April 2026 after four women accused him of sexual misconduct. He apologized for "mistakes in judgment" and denies the assault allegations. No charge has been filed. Official U.S. House portrait.
Swalwell resigned on April 14, 2026, days after four women, one of them a former staffer, publicly accused him of a range of sexual misconduct, including rape. CNN reported additional accounts, among them unsolicited nude photos. Swalwell apologized for what he called "mistakes in judgment" but denied the assault allegations. No criminal charge has been filed against him.
Mace had already made clear that resignation was not the point. In the statement she put out as Swalwell and Gonzales announced they would leave, she wrote: "Swalwell and Gonzales made the right call, but walking out the door does not erase the disgusting acts they are being accused of and the women they hurt." She had put it more plainly before that: "Every one of them needs to resign immediately." Her position is defensible on its own terms, but it is not the position she took for George Santos, and the distinction is the accusation-versus-conviction line she drew in 2023.
Tony Gonzales
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) resigned in April 2026. He first said he was being extorted, then admitted an affair with a staffer who had died by suicide. No criminal charge followed. Official U.S. House portrait.
Gonzales left the same week. In February 2026, NBC News and CBS News published explicit 2024 text messages he had sent a staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, in which he asked her to "send me a sexy pic." She had replied, "this is going too far boss." Santos-Aviles died by suicide in 2025, and her widower's attorney alleged that Gonzales had coerced her into the relationship. Gonzales at first refused to resign and said he was being extorted; he later admitted to the affair and announced on April 13, 2026 that he would leave, effective the next day. A second staffer alleged he had asked her for nude photos as well.
Mace called for his resignation back in February, describing the allegations as "deeply disturbing" and "an abuse of power." His case is the one where the accused conceded the most, an affair, in his own words, yet even here there was no criminal charge and no conviction, only a resignation under pressure.
Max Miller, the "if true" case
Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), whose ex-wife Emily Moreno has made domestic-abuse allegations he denies. Mace's statement on him is the only one she qualified with "if true." Official U.S. House portrait.
Miller belongs here with an asterisk. On July 29, 2026, after CNN, the New York Times and Rolling Stone revived domestic-abuse allegations made by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno (the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno), Mace told Newsweek: "The allegations against Max Miller are horrific. They must be investigated, and if true, he should resign immediately." Miller denies the allegations, calling them false and tied to a custody dispute.
Two things set this apart. The allegation is domestic violence, not sexual misconduct, and "if true" is a qualifier Mace attached to no one else on this page. She knows how to hedge. She reserves it.
Even hedged, she was out front. Mace was the first member of Congress, and as of early August the only House Republican, to call publicly for Miller to be investigated or to resign. Speaker Mike Johnson stressed that "the key word there is allegation," and Rep. Jim Jordan called it "a family matter." The allegations have kept escalating around her: on July 30, 2026, Moreno filed a new restraining-order request accusing Miller of grabbing her attorney at a courthouse hearing, which a judge had not yet ruled on. Miller denies all of it. In an August 2 livestream he said, "No criminal charge has ever been filed against me," and, "I have nothing to hide." No charge has been filed, and there is no conviction.
Not only sexual misconduct: the airport CEO she moved to fire
Elliott Summey, President and CEO of Charleston International Airport, whom Mace publicly demanded be fired. The airport's own investigation, closed weeks later, faulted Mace's conduct at the checkpoint, not his. He was never charged, never found to have broken a rule, and is still the CEO. Photo via Charleston County Aviation Authority.
The pattern is not confined to sexual-misconduct claims. On October 30, 2025, a mix-up over the color of her vehicle (airport security was expecting a white BMW; she arrived in a silver one) left Mace without her police escort at Charleston International Airport, and she clashed with TSA and airport staff at the checkpoint. Within days she had turned the episode into a public campaign to remove the airport's chief executive, Elliott Summey, the son of North Charleston's longtime mayor.
At a November 3, 2025 press conference she tied his firing to her run for governor: "I have nothing more to say to Elliott Summey other than: you're fired when I'm governor." The next morning she posted on X:
"I am 100% going to demand the resignation of Charleston Airport CEO, Elliott Summey, the airport personnel who filed false 'incident' reports, the Airline employee who made false statements to law enforcement and any other federal or state employee involved in this absolute, total, complete, utter nonsense, GARBAGE. You've been caught. Now you get to find out. HOLD THE LINE"
Hours later she posted again: "Elliott honey, you've earned everything coming your way." Summey did not trade insults; his office said the airport's police "demonstrate professionalism, vigilance and dedication every day."
Then the airport's own police investigation closed. Finalized on November 12, 2025, it did not fault Summey. It found the airport bore only limited responsibility for the vehicle mix-up, and that Mace's own conduct at the checkpoint had turned "a minor miscommunication" into "a spectacle." Her answer to a finding that cut against her was to call the report "falsified, 100 percent fictitious." Summey was never charged, never found to have broken any rule, and was not fired; he remains the CEO. The shape is the one that repeats: the demand for the maximum penalty came first, before any finding, and the finding, when it arrived, did not support it. (A governor could not have fired him in any event; the airport's CEO answers to an appointed authority board, not the statehouse.)
The House floor, February 10, 2025
The pattern predates her colleagues. On February 10, 2025, Mace used a House floor speech to name four private citizens and detail accusations of rape and sexual abuse against them, standing beside a poster headed "PREDATORS." The four, as reported by the Post and Courier and the SC Daily Gazette, were Eric Bowman, Patrick Bryant (her former fiance), Brian Musgrave, and John Osborne. Maceopedia documents the speech in full at the "PREDATORS" House-floor speech.
All four have denied the allegations. None has been criminally charged for the conduct she described that night.
Eric Bowman, who called the floor-speech allegations "baseless, repugnant and defamatory." Photo via Daily Mail.
Patrick Bryant, Mace's former fiance: "I categorically deny these allegations."
Brian Musgrave, who denied the allegations and sued Mace for defamation. The suit was dismissed on Westfall Act grounds, a procedural ruling that does not decide whether the allegations are true, and is subject to appeal.
John Osborne, who denied the allegations. He faces a civil lawsuit but no criminal charge. Photo via NFX/Signal.
The proof status, on the public record: the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division opened an investigation in December 2023. It has publicly named only Patrick Bryant as a subject, and Brian Musgrave has said SLED told him he is not a target. More than two and a half years later, no one has been charged or indicted for the sexual-misconduct allegations Mace described from the floor, and no one has been convicted.
One caveat, stated plainly for accuracy. Eric Bowman was separately arrested in 2025 in matters unrelated to the floor speech: a 2024 stalking and harassment case, in which the felony stalking charge was later dismissed, and a 2016 domestic-violence incident that resurfaced amid the fallout. Different incidents, different accusers, not charges for what Mace named from the floor. John Osborne faces a civil suit over an alleged assault, but no criminal charge. The narrow point holds for all four: no one has been criminally charged for the accusations Mace made that night.
She could make those accusations from the floor because of the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause, which shields a member from being sued over the speech itself. That immunity is what let her name four un-charged private citizens as predators without the defamation exposure a private speaker would carry. Whether it also protects what she did around the speech, such as displaying the poster outside her office afterward, is a question courts have not resolved on the merits.
Disclosure. Two of the four men named in the February 2025 floor speech, Patrick Bryant and Brian Musgrave, are connected to this site. We state that plainly rather than bury it. They are here for the same reason the members of Congress are: each was publicly condemned by Mace before any charge existed. Every allegation in the floor speech is unproven and denied, the related litigation is ongoing, and nothing on this page should be read as a statement of fact about any of these men's conduct.
Her own record
The Office of Congressional Conduct report on Mace, matter OCC 25-5681, released publicly by the House Ethics Committee on March 2, 2026. Click any page to enlarge.
A later page of the same report. The full document and all released pages are on Maceopedia's ethics hub: the Mace ethics investigation.
Mace casts herself as the House's conscience on misconduct. Her own file complicates the part. On November 18, 2025, the Office of Congressional Conduct referred her to the House Ethics Committee, matter OCC 25-5681. On March 2, 2026, the committee released the report publicly, and it is now hosted on Maceopedia's ethics hub. The report found "substantial reason to believe" her office had campaign-finance and reporting problems, and it is explicit that this threshold is a basis for further review, not a finding that any violation occurred. It also records that Mace and three associates declined to cooperate, which prompted a subpoena recommendation. Through counsel, she called the report "fundamentally flawed" and the investigation political "retaliation." She did not resign.
Read that response against the ones above. Facing a real, publicly released ethics report with her own name on it, Mace reached for exactly what she denies the men on this page: process, the difference between a preliminary finding and a proven violation, and the right not to answer questions. The underlying subject is campaign finance, not the conduct she accuses others of, so the allegations are not equivalent. The standard is. Full due process and the benefit of the doubt when the name on the report is hers; resign now, or be expelled, when it is someone else's.
The Gaetz exception
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, whom Mace first mocked over the federal sex-trafficking investigation into him, then endorsed for U.S. Attorney General, after the House Ethics Committee found he "may have violated" laws including statutory rape. Public-domain portrait via Wikimedia Commons.
There is one case that cuts the other way. Mace ridiculed Matt Gaetz over the federal sex-trafficking investigation into him, then endorsed his nomination for U.S. Attorney General, even after the House Ethics Committee's own report found he "may have violated" laws including statutory rape. Gaetz was never federally charged. Set beside the cases above, it is hard to read as a fixed principle. The severity seems to move with the politics rather than the evidence.
What the record shows
The sequence rarely changes. An allegation surfaces. Mace calls for the maximum available penalty, resignation, expulsion, or the "predator" label, before any charge is filed, and in some cases after a prosecutor or the accuser has already declined to pursue one. The accused deny it, or, as with Gonzales, admit part of it. No criminal conviction follows. The one time the person facing expulsion had actually been indicted, George Santos, Mace was the one insisting on the presumption of innocence. When an ethics report landed on her own desk, she insisted on it again.
Her 2023 words are on the record. So are her 2025 and 2026 actions. Readers can hold them up against each other.
Watch: the 60-second version
Maceopedia's own summary, drawn entirely from the public record set out above: her 2023 rule set against her actions since 2025, each man's status noted (never charged, no conviction, and denies the allegations). Footage is public-domain U.S. House floor video and her own on-record statements.
Sources & related coverage
- The National Desk, Mace on the Santos expulsion vote, "charges are not a conviction" (Dec. 1, 2023)
- Rep. Nancy Mace, press release: introduces resolution to expel Cory Mills (Apr. 20, 2026); NBC News, Mace introduces measure to expel Cory Mills
- Rep. Nancy Mace, press release: statement on Swalwell and Gonzales's plans to resign; press release: calls on four members to resign or face expulsion
- Roll Call, Swalwell resigns, denies sexual assault allegations; The 19th, Swalwell and Gonzales resign amid sexual misconduct allegations; NPR, Swalwell faces new allegations after resignation
- CBS News, texts Rep. Tony Gonzales sent a staffer who died by suicide; Texas Tribune, Gonzales says he won't resign and Gonzales to resign; PBS NewsHour, Gonzales to retire after admitting affair
- Newsweek, Mace calls for investigation into "horrific" Max Miller allegations; Washington Post, senator's daughter files new restraining order against Rep. Max Miller; Fox News, Miller pushes back on abuse allegations, "have nothing to hide"
- Elliott Summey / Charleston airport: Fox News, Mace demands airport CEO resign; ABC News 4, Mace blasts airport officials over alleged security lapse; NBC News, police report says Mace cursed and berated officers; Live5News, Mace calls for investigation into alleged airport surveillance; and Mace's own posts, @RepNancyMace and @NancyMace (Nov. 4, 2025)
- Rep. Nancy Mace, press release: resolutions to ban members from sexual relationships and cohabitation with House staff (Jul. 30, 2026); H.Res. 1465 and H.Res. 1466
- Post and Courier and SC Daily Gazette, reporting on the February 10, 2025 floor speech and the four men named; Maceopedia, the "PREDATORS" House-floor speech
- The released OCC 25-5681 ethics report and page images, on Maceopedia's ethics investigation hub and House Ethics investigation
- NBC News, the House Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz
This dispatch quotes verbatim from Mace's own public statements and from named outlets, and draws only on the public record. Every allegation described is unproven unless otherwise noted; none of the men named has been convicted, and most were never charged. The analysis concerns Nancy Mace's public conduct and takes no position on the truth of any underlying allegation.