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Brian Musgrave

South Carolina private citizen publicly named by Rep. Nancy Mace in a February 2025 House floor speech alleging sexual misconduct; Musgrave denied all allegations and subsequently sued Mace for defamation; the suit was dismissed on immunity grounds in August 2025. In August 2026, three South Carolina circuit solicitors who reviewed the state investigation wrote that Mace's accusations against him lacked evidence; their letters were made public on October 14, 2026.

Updated · Oct 14, 2026
Brian Musgrave
Credit: Photo from the board Rep. Nancy Mace posted publicly outside her Capitol office. Source

Brian Musgrave is a South Carolina private citizen who was publicly named by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in her February 10, 2025, House floor speech. He is reported to be a longtime friend and co-owner of an Isle of Palms condominium with Patrick Bryant, another man Mace named in the same speech. Musgrave had no prior public profile before being named.

Musgrave speaks on camera about Mace's accusations and his defamation suit against her: "It's catastrophic," he said. He denies all of the allegations. (Source: ABC News 4 / WCIV, via YouTube.)

What Happened

February 10, 2025, House floor speech. In a nearly hour-long speech delivered from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Mace publicly named Musgrave, along with Patrick Bryant and two other South Carolina men, and alleged that they had committed rape, voyeurism, sex trafficking, and other sex crimes against multiple women, including Mace herself. Mace also alleged the crimes involved hidden-camera recordings and that some victims were underage. The speech was widely covered by national media.

Musgrave's denial. Musgrave denied all allegations. Through his attorneys at Bland Richter, LLP, Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter, he specifically denied any connection to any recording device referenced in Mace's speech. His lawyers stated publicly: "Brian did not own the camera. Brian did not have the password for the camera. Brian did not have the ability to access the camera digitally. Brian never viewed anything on the camera. Brian never recorded anything using the camera."

March 10, 2025, CNN exclusive, aired on Anderson Cooper 360°. Musgrave gave his first on-camera interview to CNN national correspondent Randi Kaye, in an exclusive that aired the evening of March 10, 2025 as a segment on Anderson Cooper 360°. Asked whether he had done any of the things Mace described, Musgrave answered: "Absolutely not. No, no." He said he could not even place himself in the context of her speech, "I couldn't think of a context where I would be named in a floor speech by Nancy Mace at all", and described the lasting personal toll: "For the rest of my life, when someone Googles 'Brian Musgrave' this is going to be the thing." His wife, Jen Musgrave, told CNN her husband was "nowhere near any of those things that she was accusing him of." His attorney Eric Bland framed the legal stakes for CNN: "You can't use the House floor as a bullhorn to destroy people."

Brian Musgrave's CNN interview, aired on Anderson Cooper 360° on March 10, 2025: asked whether he did what Mace alleged, he answers "Absolutely not. No, no." It plays from The Daily Beast's video player, the same CNN footage The Daily Beast embedded in its report. CNN does not permit its own player to be embedded off-site; the CNN segment is linked below. (Source: CNN, via The Daily Beast.)

Watch the CNN segment: Anderson Cooper 360° / Randi Kaye exclusive →

February, March 2025, Open letter and lawsuit demand. Musgrave's attorneys sent Mace a four-page open letter demanding she either produce evidence implicating him, retract her allegations, and publicly apologize, or face litigation. House General Counsel declined to provide evidence, redirecting inquiries to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), which had opened a separate investigation into Mace's broader claims.

March 2025, Defamation lawsuit filed. Musgrave filed a federal defamation suit against Mace in U.S. District Court (District of South Carolina), alleging libel. The suit focused on the prepared text of the speech distributed to the press, a poster displayed outside Mace's congressional office, and social media posts Mace published on X (formerly Twitter).

August 2025, Lawsuit dismissed. U.S. District Judge Richard Mark Gergel dismissed the case with prejudice on August 20, 2025 (Dkt. 43; judgment entered August 21). The court substituted the United States as defendant under the Westfall Act, finding that Mace's House speech and her related communications with the press and on social media were within the scope of her employment as a Member of Congress; held that the libel claims against the United States are barred by the Federal Tort Claims Act; dismissed the constitutional (Bivens) claim; and denied Musgrave's request for discovery. The order states that the court "offers no opinion concerning the truthfulness or the lack of truthfulness" of Mace's allegations. No notice of appeal appears on the public docket. Musgrave's attorneys publicly criticized the ruling, stating they were "stunned and disappointed" that lawmakers effectively receive absolute immunity even for statements alleged to be false, so long as those statements bear some connection to legislative duties.

October 2025, Suit against news outlets. Musgrave separately filed a defamation action (York County, later removed as Musgrave v. Herring Networks, Inc. et al., No. 0:25-cv-13373-JDA) against OAN's parent company, an OAN host, and the Louder with Crowder podcast and two of its hosts, over two Mace interviews. On September 30, 2026, the federal court dismissed the OAN parent company without prejudice for lack of personal jurisdiction and granted summary judgment to the podcast defendants, holding their statements were not susceptible to a defamatory meaning as to Musgrave. A notice of voluntary dismissal was filed October 1, 2026. Neither court ruled on the truth of Mace's allegations. Full account with both orders: Brian Musgrave Sued Nancy Mace. The Court Threw It Out.

August 2026, Three solicitors review the state investigation. On July 15, 2026, SLED delivered its report (file 11-23-0312) to Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson for review. In a Memorandum of Review to SLED Captain Haley Nelson dated August 14, 2026, Wilson took Musgrave first: "Like you, I will begin with Nancy Mace's very public allegations against Brian Musgrave. Her spurious claims against him demonstrate the severe credibility complications that taint some of the evidence underlying other allegations." Of the report's section on him she wrote: "Your report offers zero evidence that Mr. Musgrave committed any crime because zero evidence was presented to you. In fact, your report shows that an allegation against Mr. Musgrave has not even been made." She continued: "Despite the lack of even a scintilla of evidence against Mr. Musgrave, Mace publicly labeled him a criminal and a predator," and "Nothing in this investigation supports any of Mace's smears against Mr. Musgrave." Wilson had consulted two senior colleagues, who wrote separately. Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone, to Captain Nelson on August 18, 2026: "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 S. Brackett, to Wilson on August 21, 2026: "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." Brackett added, of Mace's accusations against Musgrave: "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." In the published copies, pages 4 through 17 of Wilson's memorandum and most of Stone's second and third pages are blacked out; this entry says nothing about them.

October 14, 2026, The letters are made public. FITSNews (Will Folks) obtained and posted the three letters, and ABC News 4 (Perrin Moore) reported on them the same day. Musgrave's attorneys, Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter, said in a statement reported by CNN and the South Carolina Daily Gazette: "To this day Ms. Mace has never apologized to Brian and his family for what she falsely said about him. Quite frankly, she should have cleared his name long ago." Richter told ABC News 4 that his client was "fully vindicated." No public response by Mace to the letters had been located when this entry was updated. The letters are reproduced, with their redactions, in the dispatch on the three solicitor letters.

All allegations made by Rep. Mace against Brian Musgrave remain unadjudicated by any court. No criminal charges against Musgrave have been publicly reported, and in August 2026 the three solicitors who reviewed the state investigation wrote, in Wilson's words, that the report offered "zero evidence" against him, in Brackett's that there was "not one speck of evidence," and in Stone's that Mace "offered neither evidence nor even suspicions to law enforcement to justify her comments." The first defamation suit was dismissed on immunity grounds and the second on jurisdiction and meaning grounds, not on the truth of any underlying allegation.

Sources

See also