Nancy Mace's Bill Says Losing Plaintiffs Pay. Her Replies Asked: What About the Falsely Accused?

Wednesday, November 4, 2026.

Nancy Mace says her new bill protects people who tell the truth. Under her posts promoting it, the question readers asked most was the other one: what about people who are falsely accused?

On Sunday, November 1, at 1:30 PM, Rep. Nancy Mace's official account posted: "Women are put in financial ruin simply for doing the right thing. We introduced the Speak Your Truth Act to require abusers who lose defamation suits against victims to pay their legal fees." (post)

@RepNancyMace, November 1, 2026, as it appeared on X on November 2.

It was her ninth post about the bill in three weeks. We read every reply X would show under all nine: 445 of the 508 replies X counted. Here is what they asked, what the bill says, and what a federal court and three state prosecutors have said about the accusations her replies raised.

Her pitch, in her words

Her two accounts, @RepNancyMace and @NancyMace, posted about the bill on October 12, 13, 14 (twice), 16, 17 (three times) and November 1 (all times Eastern):

• October 12, 11:30 AM: "Today, we introduced the Speak Your Truth Act to make abusers PAY for suing survivors into silence." The same post: "Our bill puts the cost of a failed suit where it belongs: on the person who filed it." (post) Congress.gov records the bill as introduced on October 9.
• October 14, 2:30 PM: "The Speak Your Truth Act changes the math. Sue a survivor for telling the truth and lose, and you pay. The truth is not defamation." (post)
• October 16 and 17, a CNN interview she posted twice (October 16, October 17). The anchor asked whether the bill has "the support from your colleagues." She answered: "Well, it's hard to say," and ended: "I will be extremely disappointed if my colleagues don't get on board on both sides of the aisle."
• October 17, 9:30 PM, with the CNN clip: "Sue a survivor for telling the truth and lose, and you pay. We introduced the Speak Your Truth Act so abusers can't use defamation lawsuits to bankrupt survivors into silence. It's not defamation if it's true." (post)

The other posts: October 13, October 14, 6:30 PM (a list of more than 20 of her bills), October 17, 1:30 PM, October 17, 2:57 PM.

What the replies asked: "What about false accusers though?"

Across the nine posts, 37 replies asked about people who are falsely accused, from 33 accounts. They came under seven of the nine posts. The most came under her October 17 post that ends "It's not defamation if it's true": 10 of the 37 replies X showed there.

• "But what if it's NOT true? That's the problem. If you were accused of a serious offense that you knew you did not commit, you'd do everything possible to clear your name and set the record straight." (reply, October 17. With 8 likes, the most-liked reply in either group below.)
• "BTW, it IS defamation if it is not true. That what the courts are for." (reply, October 18)
• "And if the accuser has been proven to have lied? Or does this only go one way?" (reply, October 17)
• "How does this protect the falsely accused?" (reply, October 18)
• "Accountability goes both ways. If someone is proven to have lied maliciously to destroy an innocent person, they shouldn't get a free pass either." (reply, October 14)
• "What about 'fake' victims who falsely accuse people of horrendous acts of abuse?" (reply, November 1)

What the replies asked: her own accusations

21 more replies, from 12 accounts, pointed to her own accusations or her own defamation fights.

• "The question isn't whether survivors should be protected. They should. The question is why a politician actively involved in defamation-related litigation is sponsoring legislation that would make those cases riskier and more expensive for plaintiffs." (reply, October 13)
• Under her October 16 post, which said "Some weaponize the court system to silence survivors": "Some weaponize their position as sitting member of Congress to introduce bills to attack their exes." (reply)
• "What about making false accusations and ruining the lives and careers of the men you accused?" (reply, October 18)
• Under the November 1 post: "You used [the] floor to defame your ex so he couldn't come after you legally." (reply)
• Also November 1: "What about 'victims' like you who ... defame your exes while invoking Congressional immunity?" (reply)

One reply, under her October 17 video, named one of the men she accused from the House floor: Brian Musgrave (reply).

Together that is 58 replies from 45 accounts. They are not most of the 445. 47 replies supported the bill, and the rest were insults, jokes, other subjects or spam, which we do not reproduce. Among replies that took up the bill itself, the questions about false accusations and about her own accusations outnumbered the replies of support, 58 to 47. Likes are not counted either way: the nine posts drew 3,970.

What the bill says

The Speak Your Truth Act is H.R. 10783. Mace introduced it on October 9, 2026, and it was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. As of November 3 it has no cosponsors, and Congress.gov lists no action since the referral. The whole operative text is one section (bill text, GPO):

"A prevailing defendant in any civil action against such defendant for defamation or libel, brought in or removed to a court of the United States, for making a communication shall be entitled to reasonable attorneys' fees and costs for prevailing in such litigation. Attorney's fees under this Act shall be paid by the plaintiff."

It defines "communication" as "factual information" expressed "without malice" and "related to an incident of sexual assault, harassment, or discrimination experienced by the individual making the communication."

Four things in that text bear on what her replies asked:

• The words "abuser," "survivor" and "victim" do not appear in it. It pays a "prevailing defendant." Her November 1 post describes it as making "abusers who lose defamation suits against victims" pay.
• It covers federal court only: suits "brought in or removed to a court of the United States." A defamation suit in state court is outside it.
• Its answer to "what about false accusers" is two phrases: the statement must be "factual information," made "without malice." The bill does not say how a court decides either one, or whether a defendant who wins on other grounds, such as immunity, counts as prevailing.
• It is not new as an idea. As of April 2022, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press counted 32 states and the District of Columbia with anti-SLAPP laws, which commonly let a defendant who wins an early dismissal recover attorney's fees (RCFP). South Carolina was not on that list.

Brian Musgrave: what the court said, and what the prosecutors said

On February 10, 2025, Mace named four private citizens as sexual predators in a speech on the House floor. One of them, Brian Musgrave, sued her for defamation in federal court, the kind of court her bill covers (Musgrave v. Mace, D.S.C. No. 2:25-cv-01823).

The court: no opinion on the truth

The case never reached whether her accusations were true. The United States certified that she was acting within the scope of her federal employment, the United States was substituted as the defendant, and the Federal Tort Claims Act does not allow libel and slander claims against the United States. On August 20, 2025, Judge Richard M. Gergel dismissed the case with prejudice. His order says, in its first footnote:

"The Court offers no opinion concerning the truthfulness or the lack of truthfulness of allegations made by Defendant Mace in her House speech."

And: "Under the operation of the FTCA, Plaintiff has no civil remedy to hold accountable persons he believes have defamed him." (order, PDF, Entry No. 43)

The prosecutors: "zero evidence"

The question the court set aside, the state's prosecutors answered. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigated Mace's allegations (SLED file 11-23-0312), and three of the state's senior solicitors reviewed its report. FITSNews and ABC News 4 published their letters on October 14, 2026.

Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, memorandum to SLED, August 14, 2026 (PDF):

"Your report offers zero evidence that Mr. Musgrave committed any crime because zero evidence was presented to you."

"Despite the lack of even a scintilla of evidence against Mr. Musgrave, Mace publicly labeled him a criminal and a predator."

And, should Mace be called as a witness at trial on any of the allegations in SLED's report: "her credibility would be thoroughly undermined by her false allegations against Mr. Musgrave." Wilson wrote that Solicitors Stone and Brackett "concur with my assessments."

Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone, letter to SLED, August 18, 2026 (PDF):

"Nancy 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."

Sixteenth Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett, letter to Solicitor Wilson, August 21, 2026 (PDF):

"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."

"Had Ms. Mace not been speaking as a Member of Congress on the floor of the House of Representatives and protected from civil liability by the United States Constitution, she would have and should have been sued into bankruptcy."

These are prosecutors' reviews of SLED's evidence, not court findings. Musgrave was never charged. On October 14, 2026, SLED charged the other three men Mace named; all three deny the charges and are presumed innocent (SLED; our report: Three Men Arrested, the Fourth Entirely Exonerated).

Musgrave has always denied her accusations. Asked by CNN whether he had done any of what she described, he said: "Absolutely not. No, no." (CNN, March 10, 2025) More: the three solicitors' letters.

"It's not defamation if it's true," she posted on October 17. The only court to rule on a defamation suit over her floor accusations did not decide whether they were true. The three prosecutors who reviewed the state's evidence on Musgrave found none.

Where the bill stands

H.R. 10783 has no cosponsors. Her term ends at noon on January 3, 2027; a bill that has not passed by then dies with the 119th Congress. She has introduced 17 House bills (H.R.) since her June 9 primary loss. Of the 177 House bills she has sponsored since 2021, Congress.gov lists one that became law under its own number: H.R. 6042 in the 117th Congress, naming a post office on Hilton Head Island.

Opinion, built on the record above: Mace is selling a bill about who should be believed and who should pay. The question her own replies kept asking is the one the bill leaves to two undefined phrases: what happens to the falsely accused. When readers pointed to her own accusations, the record on Brian Musgrave answers them. The court reached no finding on the truth, and three state prosecutors wrote that there was no evidence at all. One of them wrote that, without her congressional immunity, she "would have and should have been sued into bankruptcy," the outcome her bill says it exists to spare people who tell the truth.

Sources and method

• H.R. 10783, Speak Your Truth Act: Congress.gov (status and cosponsors as of November 3, 2026, via the Congress.gov API); text as introduced, GPO.
• Mace's sponsored legislation: Congress.gov API, member M000194, read November 2, 2026.
• Musgrave v. Mace, No. 2:25-cv-01823-RMG (D.S.C.), order of August 20, 2025, Entry No. 43: PDF on this site.
• Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, Memorandum of Review to SLED, Aug. 14, 2026 (PDF); Solicitor Duffie Stone to SLED, Aug. 18, 2026 (PDF); Solicitor Kevin Brackett to Solicitor Wilson, Aug. 21, 2026 (PDF). Copies as published by FITSNews, Oct. 14, 2026; parts of the Wilson and Stone letters are blacked out in those copies.
• SLED, Oct. 14, 2026: SLED charges three Charleston County men with sexually related offenses.
• CNN, Randi Kaye, March 10, 2025: Man accused as 'predator' by Rep. Nancy Mace breaks his silence.
• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, anti-SLAPP legal guide.
• CNN interview footage as posted by Mace on X, October 16 and 17, 2026 (links above). The anchor is not named on screen.
• Her nine posts and the replies: read on November 2, 2026 from X. X counted 508 replies; it showed 445 to us, after expanding hidden replies. Each reply was sorted into one group by Maceopedia: false accusations; her own accusations or her own defamation fights; support for the bill; or other. Reply counts are not a poll and do not measure public opinion. Quotes are as written; [brackets] and ellipses mark our edits, and we do not reproduce insults.

Brian Musgrave denies every allegation Rep. Mace made against him. No criminal charge has been filed against him, and the three solicitors who reviewed SLED's investigation wrote that there is no evidence for them; their letters are prosecutors' reviews, not court findings. The August 2025 dismissal rested on immunity; the court offered no opinion on the truth of her allegations. SLED charged three other men Mace named; they deny the charges and are presumed innocent. Mace denies the claims brought against her and has maintained that her statements were within her official duties. The replies quoted here are the words of the people who posted them, not findings of fact. If Rep. Mace or her office supplies a correction, we will add it here.