An Independent Public RecordWednesday, June 17, 2026

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Subjects

The House Ethics Investigation

The Office of Congressional Conduct voted 6-0 to find substantial reason to believe Rep. Nancy Mace engaged in improper lodging reimbursement practices. The House Ethics Committee released the full OCC report on March 2, 2026, and announced an expanded review. No violation has been found. Mace denies wrongdoing and calls the report fundamentally flawed.

Overview

From January 2023 through May 2024, Rep. Nancy Mace filed Members' Representational Allowance (MRA) reimbursement requests for lodging at a Washington, D.C., property she co-owned with her then-fiancé. The Office of Congressional Conduct (OCC), the independent, bipartisan body formerly known as the Office of Congressional Ethics, opened Review No. 25-5681 to examine whether those reimbursement requests matched her actual lodging expenses.

On November 18, 2025, the OCC Board voted 6-0 to find "substantial reason to believe that Rep. Mace engaged in improper reimbursement practices" and to refer the matter to the House Committee on Ethics. The referral was transmitted to the Committee in December 2025.

A "substantial reason to believe" finding is the OCC's referral threshold. It is not a determination that any law or House rule was violated.

Timeline

  • May 2025, OCC opens Review No. 25-5681.
  • August 13, 2025, OCC interviews a former Mace staffer who assisted with the reimbursement forms (Witness 1).
  • November 18, 2025, OCC Board votes 6-0 to find substantial reason to believe and to refer. The cover page records: "VOTES IN THE AFFIRMATIVE: 6 / VOTES IN THE NEGATIVE: 0 / ABSTENTIONS: 0."
  • December 1, 2025, OCC transmits the referral to the House Committee on Ethics.
  • December 17, 2025, Mace's counsel William M. Sullivan Jr. submits a response letter characterizing the report as "fundamentally flawed."
  • January 16, 2026, House Ethics Committee announces an extension of its review, with a next step due March 2, 2026.
  • March 2, 2026, Committee publicly releases the full OCC Report and Findings and announces an expanded review. Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS) and Ranking Member Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) issue a joint statement.

What the OCC Found

Always the maximum. The OCC found that Mace "requested and received the maximum allowable reimbursement for each month she filed a reimbursement request form." In 2024, her requests exceeded the D.C. property's actual expenses in January, March, April, and May, amounting to an excess of $9,485.46. In 2023, the OCC identified excess months in January, February, March, May, June, September, October, and November.

The $2,462.94 figure. The report noted correspondence between Mace and the former fiancé's accountant (Witness 3 in the report) suggesting that $2,462.94 per month, based on 2022 property costs, was the amount she was entitled to request. Mace requested the maximum allowable figure every month, which for four months exceeded even the accountant's figure.

The staffer's testimony. A former Mace staffer (Witness 1) told OCC investigators, in verbatim testimony quoted at paragraph 31 of the report: "So when I first started filling out these forms, the Congresswoman and the Chief of Staff would always talk about how it doesn't even come close to covering her living costs. And so when they checked over, I made sure that they never went over her current living costs. So the max out was, according to them, accurate." The OCC cited this as evidence that the instruction to claim the maximum came from Mace and her chief of staff.

The payment question. The OCC reviewed correspondence (¶25) indicating that as of October 5, 2023, while Mace had received MRA reimbursements for lodging expenses, she had not contributed those funds to the bank account associated with the D.C. property. Utility bills for the property were largely in the former fiancé's name and paid from the joint account.

Why the OCC could not go further. Because Mace refused to be interviewed, the report states, "the OCC was unable to determine how or why Rep. Mace decided to seek the maximum allowable reimbursement when it exceeded her expenses incurred."

Applicable Law

The OCC report cited four potential legal violations (¶13-14):

  • 18 U.S.C. § 1001, false statements to the federal government
  • 18 U.S.C. § 641, conversion of public money or property
  • 31 U.S.C. § 1301, appropriations law (funds to be used only for their designated purpose)
  • House Rule 23, clauses 1 and 2, conduct standards for members

Refusal to Cooperate, and Subpoena Recommendation

The following individuals and entities refused to cooperate with the OCC's review: Rep. Mace; former chief of staff Daniel Hanlon; former staffers Lorie Khatod and Richard Chalkey. The OCC report recommended (¶35) that the Ethics Committee issue subpoenas to all four.

Named Officials

  • Omar S. Ashmawy, OCC Staff Director and Chief Counsel; presented the referral to the Ethics Committee.
  • Michael Guest (R-MS), Chairman, House Committee on Ethics.
  • Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), Ranking Member, House Committee on Ethics.
  • Daniel Hanlon, Mace's former chief of staff; named in the public report as refusing to cooperate.
  • William M. Sullivan Jr., Mace's lead defense attorney (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP); submitted the "fundamentally flawed" response on her behalf.

Mace's Denial

Mace has denied wrongdoing throughout. Her attorney's December 17, 2025 letter called the OCC report "fundamentally flawed" and stated it "appears to incorporate unverified assertions and materials that may have originated from, or been influenced by, Rep. Mace's former fiancé," per the Washington Examiner and WIS-TV. Mace told The Daily Signal on March 6, 2026 that the probe was "probably retaliation for Epstein, let's be honest" and that "when you fight the swamp, the swamp fights back." She also characterized the timing, released, she said, an hour after a deposition she was taking, as deliberate. Mace's office separately attacked OCC presenting official Omar Ashmawy by name; that characterization is Mace's own and is not a finding of this investigation.

Earlier, Mace told ABC News 4 that she had "incurred over $100,000 in lodging expenses in DC and received approximately $29,000 after taxes in reimbursements", her framing that reimbursements represented only a fraction of her actual costs.

The House Ethics Committee has made no finding that Mace violated any law or House rule. The matter remains under active review.

Related Strands

Two additional ethics strands are cataloged here as context but carry different tags and are not part of the OCC's reimbursement review:

The 2023 Rotunda fundraising complaint. On October 4, 2023, Mace appeared on Fox Business from the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and stated on camera that she was fundraising at that moment. Federal law bars soliciting campaign contributions in any building occupied in the discharge of official duties. The Campaign for Accountability filed an OCE complaint the following day. No formal finding of a violation resulted. See the dispatch: Mace fundraises in the Capitol Rotunda on live TV.

The H.Res. 1100 records push. Mace introduced H.Res. 1100 to compel public release of records from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights on taxpayer-funded sexual-harassment settlements paid on behalf of House members. On March 4, 2026, the full House voted 357-65 to refer the resolution back to the Ethics Committee, shelving it. In May 2026, the OCWR itself subpoenaed Mace's office, with reported disclosures of over $300,000 in settlements. See the dispatch: House votes 357-65 to block Mace's push to release congressional harassment settlement records.

Sources & Related Coverage

See Also

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