Controversial congresswoman Nancy Mace allegedly planned to use naked photos found on her boyfriend’s phone as leverage for two lucrative properties she wanted him to give her.
An explosive deposition by Mace’s former political adviser claims that the MAGA Republican was obsessed with talking about sex, and paints her as someone who plays “the victim card.”
It also suggests she was so tech-savvy that she would stay up all night programming bots on social media platforms.
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“Nancy talks about her sex life in a way that I’ve never heard a client or a woman talk,” said Wesley Donehue, a corporate and political strategist who has known Mace for years and previously worked as her political adviser.
“It’s like every conversation would devolve into what’s going on in her sex life,” he claimed in the filing.
The Daily Beast has seen the 81-page deposition taken in April as part of a legal case involving Mace’s ex, South Carolina businessman Patrick Bryant.
Donehue says Mace had asked her to inform Bryant that she had found photos and videos of numerous women on his phone.
One allegedly showed a girl on a couch, seemingly passed out with a blanket over her, and another was said to be a photo of someone being photographed up their skirt.
A third photo was a blurry image of Mace that she had said was taken while she was naked and going to the bathroom.
Donehue claimed that Mace’s aim was “to use all the information that she found as leverage to gain 100 percent ownership” of two homes they shared: one in Washington D.C., and the other in South Carolina’s Isle of Palms.
“Did Nancy ever task you with communicating with Patrick Bryant about her possession of these alleged photographs in asking you to essentially help her blackmail Patrick into giving over 100 percent ownership?” the lawyer asked, according to the filing.
“Yes,” Donehue replied.
The allegations emerged after Mace appeared in a House hearing this week and displayed a blurry, black and white photo of what she said was her “naked silhouette”.
The image, the congresswoman said, was a screenshot from a video taken without her consent on a “secret camera” by Bryant.
Bryant is one of four men that Mace accused of sexual misconduct during an explosive speech on the House floor in February, allegations that the men have repeatedly denied. One is now suing the Congresswoman for defamation.
“I’m staying quiet for now, but this isn’t even close to the end of the story,” Bryant said.
Meanwhile, Mace’s office told The Daily Beast: “The word “blackmail” wasn’t Donehue’s, it was first used by the attorney in a leading question. Donehue only repeated the term after it was introduced to him. The rest is just deposition clickbait.”
“In his deposition, Wesley Donehue said he and Congresswoman Mace were friends. He said she came to him emotionally distraught and afraid for her safety. He saw bruises on her body. Nothing else matters,” a spokeswoman said.
According to Donehue, the photos were found after Mace saw dating apps on Bryant’s phone, which prompted concerns he was cheating on her. The congresswoman was a tech geek, he noted, who “sits all night on the couch and programs bots, because she’s very, very computer savvy.”
But Mace said she feared for her safety as a result of photos allegedly being taken without people’s knowledge. Despite this, Donehue claims, she was nonetheless planning to join Bryant on an upcoming trip to the Caribbean, ’ which he advised against.
“I said, ‘Nancy, you can’t say you fear for your safety and you’re going to the Caribbean with him and some of his friends,’” he said. “Then she said–I remember as clear as day–”I’m taking my free vacation to the Caribbean.”
“I believe that Nancy believed the things that she was saying,” he added in the deposition.
