The House Ethics Committee has launched an investigation into Rep. Nancy Mace over allegations she pocketed nearly $10,000 in improper housing reimbursements.
The probe stems from a referral by the Office of Congressional Conduct, a nonpartisan body that reviews misconduct complaints against lawmakers.
The OCC found “substantial reason to believe” that the South Carolina Republican, 48, “engaged in improper reimbursement practices” after determining she had claimed the maximum allowable housing expense at her Washington, D.C., property over a 13-month period spanning 2023 and 2024—taking home $9,485.46 more than her actual costs at the property, as Politico reported.
Mace’s office hit back at the OCC in a statement provided to Politico, accusing it of being a partisan body that “retaliates against women and ignores its own evidentiary standards” and insisting Mace is “not taking seriously” the ethics complaint.
A spokesperson for Mace denied the allegations in an email to the Daily Beast.
Mace herself did not participate in the probe. Her attorney, in a submission to the OCC in December, blamed the referral on Mace’s former fiancé, Patrick Bryant, accusing him of supplying investigators with “false narratives and spurious characterizations.”
Bryant did not respond to a request for comment from Politico. The Daily Beast also attempted to reach him.
The Mace-Bryant relationship became national news last year when the South Carolina Republican used congressional proceedings to accuse Bryant and three other men from the state of sexual abuse. Bryant has denied those allegations.
The timing of Monday’s disclosure carries its own significance. The Ethics Committee released the OCC report just days before it would have been barred from opening new investigations. Under committee rules, a 60-day moratorium kicks in ahead of any election in which the subject of a probe is a candidate.
Mace, who has two children with her second husband, whom she divorced in 2019, is running for governor of South Carolina, with the Republican primary scheduled for June 9.
The reimbursement system at the center of the investigation is itself a relatively recent creation. In April 2023, House members were permitted for the first time to claim expenses for meals and lodging on a voluntary basis, pulled from the same congressional office budgets that cover staff pay and official travel costs.
Mace’s case is among the first ethics matters to test the new rules, which represent the first major overhaul of congressional financial operations in decades, Politico reported.
The reimbursement system was introduced partly in response to long-standing complaints from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that maintaining two homes—one in their district, one in Washington—was a significant burden on their $174,000 annual salaries, frozen since 2009.
The committee said Monday it would conduct further review of the matter under Committee Rule 18(a) and would make no additional public statements pending completion of that initial review. It noted that the fact of further review does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred.
A spokesman for the committee declined to comment when contacted by the Daily Beast.
