Mace Won't Talk About Brian Musgrave, and He Isn't Even Under the Gag Order

This dispatch is built on the on-the-record reporting of CNN national correspondent Randi Kaye, whose March 10, 2025 exclusive gave Brian Musgrave his first chance to answer, and on the federal court record in Musgrave v. Mace.

On February 10, 2025, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, beside a poster headed "PREDATORS," and named four private citizens as sexual predators. One of them was Brian Musgrave, a Fort Mill, South Carolina businessman most of the country had never heard of. Eighteen months later, this is the whole of the public record against him: no criminal charge, no evidence produced, no retraction, and a state investigation that told him he is not a target.

The one place Musgrave could seek an answer was a courtroom, and a year ago this week that door closed. On August 20, 2025, a federal judge dismissed his defamation suit against Mace. Read the ruling and you find it decided nothing about whether the accusation was true. It decided that Mace could not be sued for it. As the court put it in plain words, Musgrave "has no civil remedy to hold accountable persons he believes have defamed him."

"Absolutely not. No, no.", Brian Musgrave to CNN, when asked whether he had done any of the things Rep. Mace described

Who Brian Musgrave is

Brian Musgrave is a Charleston-area businessman who co-invested with Patrick Bryant, Mace's former fiance, in at least one Isle of Palms property the two operated as a short-term rental. He lives in a different part of South Carolina than Mace's First Congressional District. He is not her constituent. Before February 10, 2025, he had no public profile at all. His attorneys say he had no involvement in any of the incidents Mace described that night.

He told CNN the accusation had been "catastrophic," that he was "completely uncertain what tomorrow is going to be business-wise," and that his family, including children in high school and college, had been left to answer for their father being branded a predator on the floor of Congress. His wife, Jen Musgrave, spoke to CNN too. She said her husband was "nowhere near any of those things that she was accusing him of."

Brian Musgrave. He denied every allegation, sued Mace for defamation, and lost, not on the facts, but on immunity. The image is from the "PREDATORS" poster Mace displayed publicly outside her Capitol office.

The accusation, and the poster she would not put away

Mace's speech was a nearly hour-long address alleging rape, voyeurism, and sex trafficking against the four men. She did not leave it in the chamber. She reposted it on her official congressional X account, where it passed 2.8 million views; she posted again referencing Musgrave by name; and she mounted the same "PREDATORS, STAY AWAY FROM" poster, with the four men's photos, names, and home towns, in the public hallway outside her office in the Longworth House Office Building, where CNN reported it hung "for the past several weeks." She revived the motif at a May 2025 hearing and again in November 2025.

The board as displayed outside Mace's Longworth office, March 5, 2025: "PREDATORS / STAY AWAY FROM," with Brian Musgrave grouped alongside Patrick Bryant, Eric Bowman, and John Osborne. See the full record of the poster.

His lawyer, Eric Bland of Bland Richter, LLP, put the objection simply: "You can't use the House floor as a bullhorn to destroy people." On February 26, 2025, Bland posted a photograph of Mace pointing at the poster where she had grouped his client with the other three men.

His CNN story

On March 10, 2025, CNN national correspondent Randi Kaye landed Musgrave's first on-camera interview, an exclusive that aired that evening as a segment on Anderson Cooper 360°. Asked whether he had done any of what Mace alleged, he answered: "Absolutely not. No, no." He said he could not even locate himself in her account: "I couldn't think of a context where I would be named in a floor speech by Nancy Mace at all." And he described the part that no ruling can undo: "For the rest of my life, when someone Googles 'Brian Musgrave' this is going to be the thing."

Brian Musgrave's CNN interview, aired on Anderson Cooper 360° on March 10, 2025. It plays from The Daily Beast's player, the same CNN footage the outlet embedded in its report; CNN does not permit its own player off-site. The CNN segment is linked below.

What the record actually contains

Musgrave's attorneys sent Mace a pre-suit letter asking her to do one of two things: produce evidence linking him to any of the conduct, or retract and apologize. She produced neither. A representative for the House General Counsel, answering on her behalf, said only that "SLED is investigating the matter" and directed his lawyers to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Bland called it "a typical government response, a non-answer." CNN reported that "a South Carolina attorney for Nancy Mace did not respond to requests for comment on Musgrave's accusations."

Follow the deflection to its end and it runs out. SLED has told Musgrave he is not a target of its investigation. No criminal charge has ever been filed against him, for the conduct in the speech or anything connected to it. In the entire eighteen months, no evidence tying him to any of it has been shown, in any court, hearing, or filing.

The immunity that ended it

Musgrave sued in federal court. The case did not turn on whether he did anything. On July 16, 2025, the U.S. Attorney for South Carolina certified under the Westfall Act that Mace was acting within the scope of her federal employment, which substitutes the United States as the defendant, and the Federal Tort Claims Act bars libel and slander suits against the United States. On August 20, 2025, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel dismissed the case with prejudice, holding that Mace's floor speech and its republication fell within the scope of her congressional employment and were shielded by the Speech or Debate Clause.

The dismissal, as the court was explicit, "rested on sovereign immunity and the scope-of-employment certification, not on any finding about the truth of the accusations." Musgrave's lawyers said they were "stunned and disappointed" that a lawmaker can receive what amounts to absolute immunity for statements alleged to be false, so long as they bear some connection to legislative duties. That is the mechanism by which a member of Congress can name four un-charged private citizens as predators, from the one podium in the country where the Constitution says she "shall not be questioned in any other Place," and carry no liability a private speaker would.

He is not under the gag order. His case is closed. She still won't answer.

Here is the part that gets lost. There is a gag order in the Mace saga, entered by a South Carolina state court on November 26, 2025. It binds the parties to Berg v. Bryant and Bryant's third-party claims against Mace, and it prohibits them from commenting on "any aspect of this case" or "any party or attorney." Mace herself is bound by it as to that case, which is why she has publicly fought it, moving on December 29, 2025 to vacate it as an unconstitutional restraint on her speech.

Brian Musgrave is not a party to that case. He is not bound by that order. And his own case against Mace is over. Nothing about him is sealed. There is no live litigation between them to stay silent about, because the immunity ruling ended it. On the one question that could still be answered, whether Mace has any evidence for calling Brian Musgrave a predator, the gag order is not what stops her.

It cannot even be the excuse. When the same state court issued a supplemental gag order on January 13, 2026, it clarified in writing that nothing in it restricts "communications with law enforcement, local, state or federal agencies," including active criminal investigations. That is the exact channel Mace has spent eighteen months pointing to: ask SLED. If she has evidence, the order she complains about expressly permits her to give it to them. She keeps deflecting to the investigation while producing nothing to it that has surfaced, and telling the public to wait on a case in which the man she named has been told he is not a target.

So set the excuses aside and what remains is a choice. She was free to speak when speaking destroyed him: the floor, the poster, the reposts to millions, the podcasts. She is free to speak now, to SLED, in a retraction, in a single sentence acknowledging she has no evidence against him. She does not. She talks about Patrick Bryant constantly. About Brian Musgrave, whose case is closed and who is under no order at all, she has gone quiet.

Still no result

A year after the dismissal, Musgrave has exactly what he had the day after the speech, minus the one legal remedy that might have forced an answer. No charge. No evidence. No retraction. No apology. He remains, in the court's own phrasing, a man with "no civil remedy to hold accountable persons he believes have defamed him." What he has instead is the thing he told CNN he would have for the rest of his life: a search result.

Disclosure. Brian Musgrave is connected to this site. We state that plainly rather than bury it. He is documented here for the same reason the public record documents him: he was named a "predator" by a member of Congress, from the House floor, before any charge existed, and eighteen months later none has come. Every allegation Mace made against him is unproven and denied. Nothing on this page is a finding of fact about his conduct or hers.

Sources & related coverage

• CNN (Randi Kaye), exclusive interview: Man accused as 'predator' by Rep. Nancy Mace breaks his silence · CNN video
• The Daily Beast: Nancy Mace's accused 'predator' Brian Musgrave hits back at allegations
• ABC News 4 / WCIV: "It's catastrophic": Brian Musgrave sues Rep. Nancy Mace · Defamation suit dismissed · Man accused demands evidence or retraction
• The Post and Courier: Judge dismisses defamation suit, finds Mace immune · Judge issues gag order restricting Mace and others from speaking about ongoing lawsuits
• FITSNews: Federal judge dismisses defamation suit against Nancy Mace
• Bland Richter, LLP (plaintiff's counsel): Filing announcement, Musgrave v. Mace
• The order itself: Judge Gergel's Aug. 20, 2025 order dismissing the case (PDF, 15 pages), also on CourtListener / RECAP

Related on this site: Brian Musgrave · Musgrave v. Mace · The "PREDATORS" poster outside her office · The "PREDATORS" House-floor speech · "Charges Are Not a Conviction": the standard Mace keeps only for herself

All allegations Rep. Mace made against Brian Musgrave are contested, unproven, and denied. No criminal charges have been filed against him, and SLED has said he is not a target. The August 2025 dismissal rested on immunity, not on the truth of any accusation. Mace in turn denies the claims brought against her and has maintained her conduct was within her official duties. Nothing here is a finding of fact. This dispatch draws only on the public record and named reporting.