Part of: Mace vs. the Solicitor: the campaign against the prosecutor in her own cases (2025) · Musgrave v. Mace (2:25-cv-01823-RMG) · 2026 Governor Campaign
EXCLUSIVE: Brian Musgrave Speaks to ABC News 4 After Three Prosecutors Clear Him
In an exclusive interview with ABC News 4 (WCIV), Brian Musgrave describes learning from a reporter's text, while driving to buy birdseed, that Rep. Nancy Mace had named him in her February 10, 2025 House floor speech, and what it was like to read the letters of three South Carolina solicitors. Solicitor Kevin Brackett wrote that there is “not one speck of evidence that substantiates any of the reckless accusations she made against Mr. Musgrave and that he is completely innocent of these outrageous claims.” Solicitor Scarlett Wilson wrote of “the lack of even a scintilla of evidence.” Solicitor Duffie Stone wrote that Mace offered “neither evidence nor even suspicions.” Musgrave’s federal suit against Mace was dismissed on August 20, 2025 on immunity grounds, and the court offered no opinion on whether her allegations were true. ABC News 4 reported that Mace has offered no apology. The interview is ABC News 4’s, by Madison Wilber, Oct. 16, 2026.
Maceopedia ·
Source note: this page is built on an interview ABC News 4 (WCIV) aired and published on October 16, 2026, on three letters by South Carolina circuit solicitors that FITSNews and ABC News 4 published on October 14, 2026, and on a federal court order. Every quotation is verbatim and attributed to its speaker or author, with the date. The interview is ABC News 4’s exclusive; Maceopedia did not conduct it. Everything on this page concerns Rep. Nancy Mace’s public accusations against Brian Musgrave and nothing else. Musgrave has denied the accusations since the day they were made. Mace has not retracted them. Maceopedia takes no position on anything the sources do not say.
“I was driving to Lowe’s to pick up some birdseed, and I got a text from someone who said that they were a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, asking me about the House speech from Representative Mace, and that I was named in it.”
That is Brian Musgrave of Fort Mill, South Carolina, in his exclusive interview with ABC News 4 (WCIV) reporter Madison Wilber, published on October 16, 2026 (watch the interview on YouTube). He said the speech itself “didn’t actually happen for hours later,” that he thought the text was spam or phishing, and, of the birdseed: “I did purchase the birdseed.”
The speech was Rep. Nancy Mace’s on the floor of the House on February 10, 2025, in which she read his name into the record and called him a predator. Eighteen months later, three of South Carolina’s senior prosecutors wrote letters about her accusations against him. This page shows the interview, the letters and the court record in order.
Reporting credited here: ABC News 4 (WCIV), Madison Wilber, whose exclusive interview with Musgrave is the subject of this page; and FITSNews, Will Folks, and ABC News 4, which published the three letters on October 14, 2026. The video above and in the full film uses clips of the ABC News 4 interview, credited on screen.
What Musgrave said
Asked about the letters, Musgrave told ABC News 4: “to see those memos and read what the solicitors, plural, wrote, it’s just a really abiding sense of relief.” On the federal suit he filed against Mace, he said: “we had our day in court, and that all got tossed on a technicality.”
Of the days after the speech: “Initially I felt like everybody was looking at me, which is awful. As it turned out, nobody was actually looking at me.” Near the close of the interview he said: “Be kind. It helps.”
ABC News 4’s report of October 16 added that Musgrave’s lawyers are pushing for Mace to make a public apology. In the station’s words, “at this point, she’s offered none.”
The three letters, shown
Three solicitors wrote about Mace’s accusations against Musgrave. Each passage below is reproduced from the copies FITSNews posted, with the author, date and recipient.
Kevin S. Brackett, Solicitor, Sixteenth Judicial Circuit, letter to Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, August 21, 2026. Hosted copy of the letter (PDF).
Brackett wrote: “Having completed our task diligently, we now know that there is not one speck of evidence that substantiates any of the reckless accusations she made against Mr. Musgrave and that he is completely innocent of these outrageous claims.”
Scarlett A. Wilson, Solicitor, Ninth Judicial Circuit, memorandum of August 14, 2026. Hosted copy of the memorandum (PDF; the published copy is partly redacted).
Wilson wrote: “Despite the lack of even a scintilla of evidence against Mr. Musgrave, Mace publicly labeled him a criminal and a predator.”
Duffie Stone, Solicitor, Fourteenth Judicial Circuit, letter of August 18, 2026. Hosted copy of the letter (PDF; the published copy is partly redacted).
Stone wrote that Mace’s “very public statements branding Brian Musgrave a predator, a rapist, and a human trafficker are shocking when she offered neither evidence nor even suspicions to law enforcement to justify her comments.”
The full dispatch on the letters, with every passage on the page it was written on, is here: Three South Carolina prosecutors on Nancy Mace’s accusations against Brian Musgrave.
The court record
Musgrave sued Mace for defamation in federal court on March 14, 2025. On August 20, 2025, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel dismissed the suit after substituting the United States as the defendant, and wrote: “Under the operation of the FTCA, Plaintiff has no civil remedy to hold accountable persons he believes have defamed him.”
Musgrave v. Mace, D.S.C. No. 2:25-cv-01823, Dkt. 43, order of August 20, 2025. The order (PDF).
A footnote on page 8 says what the order is not: “The Court offers no opinion concerning the truthfulness or the lack of truthfulness of allegations made by Defendant Mace in her House speech.” The order, shown page by page, is in the dispatch on the dismissal.
Musgrave’s answer from the start
Musgrave’s own answer has not changed since March 10, 2025, when CNN’s Randi Kaye asked him on camera whether he had done any of the things Mace described: “Absolutely not. No, no.” That interview.
What Mace has said
Mace named Musgrave on the House floor on February 10, 2025 and has never retracted it. When the court dismissed his suit on August 20, 2025, she posted that the judge had “dismissed Brian Musgrave’s baseless defamation suit against me.” No public response by Mace to the three letters had been located when this page was written. If she makes one, it will be added here.
Where it stands
On the floor of the House, Mace called Brian Musgrave a predator, put his photograph on a poster, and hung the poster outside her office. Three South Carolina solicitors have since written that there was no evidence to support what she said about him, and one wrote that he is “completely innocent of these outrageous claims.” His suit ended on immunity, with no ruling on whether her accusations were true. ABC News 4 reports that she has offered no apology. That is the record.
Follow the record. New dispatches and filings publish to the RSS feed and to @maceopedia on X.
Sources & related coverage
The interview:
- ABC News 4 (WCIV), “Exclusive: Brian Musgrave speaks after solicitors clear him in Nancy Mace allegations,” interview by Madison Wilber, Oct. 16, 2026: youtube.com/watch?v=kbbE_G0M7hk
The letters, as published by FITSNews (hosted copies are byte-identical):
- Memorandum of Review, Solicitor Scarlett A. Wilson, August 14, 2026 (hosted copy)
- Letter, Solicitor Duffie Stone, August 18, 2026 (hosted copy)
- Letter, Solicitor Kevin S. Brackett to Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, August 21, 2026 (hosted copy)
The court record:
- U.S. District Court, District of South Carolina, Musgrave v. Mace, No. 2:25-cv-01823, Dkt. 43, order of August 20, 2025: CourtListener (hosted copy)
Related dispatches:
Read next
October 15, 2026 · Dispatch"She Would Have and Should Have Been Sued Into Bankruptcy": Three South Carolina Prosecutors on Nancy Mace's Accusations Against Brian Musgrave
Three of South Carolina's senior prosecutors reviewed the state investigation of Rep. Nancy Mace's accusations, and each wrote, in a letter now public, that her public accusations against Brian Musgrave lacked evidence. Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson called them 'spurious claims' resting on 'the lack of even a scintilla of evidence' (Aug. 14, 2026). Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone wrote that her statements 'branding Brian Musgrave a predator, a rapist, and a human trafficker are shocking' (Aug. 18). Sixteenth Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett wrote that 'there is not one speck of evidence' and that, had she not been protected by the Constitution, she 'would have and should have been sued into bankruptcy' (Aug. 21). FITSNews and ABC News 4 published the letters on Oct. 14, 2026. The letters are shown here. Musgrave has always denied the accusations. Mace has not retracted them.
October 17, 2026 · DispatchPatrick Bryant at ABC News 4: Brian Musgrave Is “Completely Exonerated”
On Oct. 16, 2026, Patrick Bryant gave a statement at the ABC News 4 studio about his friend Brian Musgrave, a day after the station reported three solicitors' letters on Rep. Nancy Mace's accusations against Musgrave. Bryant said Musgrave has been “completely exonerated of any wrongdoing” and that the allegations were “completely baseless.” Those are Bryant's words. The letters are prosecutors' reviews, not court findings. Musgrave denies Mace's accusations and has not been charged. Mace denies wrongdoing.
October 15, 2026 · DispatchSolicitor Scarlett Wilson to SLED: Mace's Credibility "Would Be Thoroughly Undermined"
In an August 14, 2026 Memorandum of Review to SLED, published October 14 by FITSNews and ABC News 4, Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson wrote that Rep. Nancy Mace's credibility 'would be thoroughly undermined by her false allegations against Mr. Musgrave.' Wilson also wrote that her review offers 'zero evidence' against Brian Musgrave and that Solicitors Duffie Stone and Kevin Brackett 'concur with my assessments.' Musgrave denies Mace's accusations and has not been charged. The letters are prosecutors' reviews, not court findings. Mace has not publicly addressed them.
August 23, 2026 · DispatchMace Won't Talk About Brian Musgrave, and He Isn't Even Under the Gag Order
A year ago this week, a federal judge ended Brian Musgrave's defamation case against Rep. Nancy Mace, not because her 'predator' accusation was found true, but because the court held she was immune. Eighteen months after she named the Fort Mill businessman from the House floor, there is still no criminal charge, no evidence produced, no retraction, and SLED has told him he is not a target. Musgrave was never a party to the case Mace is gagged in, and his own case is closed, so nothing bars her from answering for the accusation. She simply does not.
October 17, 2026 · DispatchSolicitor Kevin Brackett: Without Her House Floor Protection, Mace "Would Have and Should Have Been Sued Into Bankruptcy"
In an August 21, 2026 letter to Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, copied to a State Law Enforcement Division captain and published October 14, 2026 by FITSNews and ABC News 4, Sixteenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor Kevin S. Brackett wrote that had Rep. Nancy Mace not been speaking on the House floor and protected from civil liability by the Constitution, she "would have and should have been sued into bankruptcy." He also wrote that "there is not one speck of evidence that substantiates any of the reckless accusations she made against Mr. Musgrave" and that he wondered whether Mace would "muster a sufficient sense of shame to compel an apology." Brian Musgrave denies Mace's accusations and has not been charged. A solicitor's letter is a prosecutor's review, not a court finding.
October 17, 2026 · DispatchSLED Checked 26 of Mace's Allegations. The Prosecutor Called Her Description of the Video 'Inaccurate, if Not False.'
SLED's 147-page report looked at 26 allegations Rep. Nancy Mace made against four men on the House floor. The Post and Courier got the report and the prosecutor's memo through an open records request. Solicitor Scarlett Wilson wrote that the video Mace described shows the opposite of what she said, calling her description 'inaccurate, if not false'. On a separate claim, four witnesses told SLED the camera she called hidden in Bryant's condo was in plain view. SLED also found no child sexual abuse images. All four men named by Mace issued strong denials. Mace did not respond to the paper.