You’ve probably never heard of Nancy Mace before. That’s about to change. The South Carolina Republican congresswoman is clearly a formidable person: first woman to graduate from the Corps of Cadets program at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina, first Republican woman elected to Congress from South Carolina, business owner and campaign worker for both Ron Paul and Donald Trump.
She grabbed headlines last week with a no-apologies takedown of USAID funding “trannies in Guatemala to the tune of two million dollars”. Her language triggered much pearl-clutching, especially from Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
“Tranny, tranny, tranny!” Mace, 47, hit back. “I don’t really care. You want penises in women’s bathrooms and I’m not gonna have it. No, thank you. It’s disgusting” […]
Mace fired back and insisted that she was “not going to be counseled by a man over men and women’s spaces or men who have mental health issues dressing as women.”
This week, though, Mace is storming the headlines with astonishing claims of shocking serial sexual abuse – against herself and a dozen other women and underage girls – at the hands of her ex-fiance and his business partners.
The South Carolina Republican pol said she came forward with the shocking allegations of rape, voyeurism and other sexual abuse after uncovering a trove of more than 10,000 videos and other photographic evidence contained on the phone by her former husband-to-be Patrick Bryant.
“I accidentally uncovered some of the most heinous crimes against women imaginable – we are talking about rape, nonconsensual photos, nonconsensual videos of women and underage girls, and the premeditated, calculated, exploitation of women and girls in my district,” Mace said in her House floor speech.
“Today you will hear about the depraved men behind these gutless, evil acts,” she added. “These men didn’t just harm their victims; they recorded their depravity as if it were a badge of honor.”
While Mace’s remarks are protected by the US equivalent of Parliamentary Privilege, if she has, as she claims, the digital proof, then this should be a massive scandal. Should be, because, remember, this is a Trump-supporting Republican. The same media who rightly reported a similar shocking case in France will almost certainly try and sweep this under the carpet.
The digital files Mace claims she discovered in November 2023 included nonconsensual images of “female employees, wives of male employees, girlfriends and other women who very clearly didn’t know their private parts were being filmed or photographed,” the congresswoman said, along with “upskirt photos” of at least one underage girl who was the daughter of a business associate.
“Last year, I had to tell a woman that she’d been raped, and she didn’t even know it,” Mace said, telling lawmakers that she discovered a video of Bryant and one of his business associates allegedly recording another business associate sexually assaulting an “incapacitated” woman.
“She had no idea because she was incapacitated at the time of the rape,” Mace said. “I knew she was raped because I accidentally found the video of her being raped.”
“The two of them, the three of them business partners, the two of them had their phones out just like this. Filming her as she was being raped. And she was completely laid out. There was no movement. There was no life. I couldn’t even tell if this young woman was alive” […]
After making the terrifying discovery, she claimed that Bryant “physically assaulted” her and she was forced out of her home and “into hiding” the following month, moving in with friends and changing address at least four times in a single year.
According to Mace, the attempt at a fix has already begun.
Mace also alleged that one of Bryant’s business associates had “tried to intimidate” her from bringing the evidence to light – and that South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson failed to probe the act as witness intimidation despite apparently opening an investigation into the sex crime allegations […]
The congresswoman said it took Wilson’s office seven months from the time she first came forward with the allegations and evidence for an investigation to be opened.
Mace claims she made the discovery after springing her ex using a dating app.
With some female victims apparently listening in the House gallery, Mace went on to recount how stumbling upon her ex-fiancé on a dating app in October 2023 prompted Bryant to allow her access to his phone where she was horrified to find a video of herself “undressed” and “unaware she was being filmed.”
“I turned up the volume to hear if there was audio. I heard my voice. I zoomed in on the video. The woman was me,” Mace revealed. “My entire body paralyzed, and I couldn’t move.”
The accusations have strong overtones of the shocking case recently concluded in France, where Gisèle Pelicot accused her now-ex husband, Dominique, of drugging his wife to sleep and recruiting dozens of men to abuse her for over 10 years. Pelicot admitted the charges, as did 15 of the 50 accused (47 were ultimately convicted). Mr Pelicot was also found with semi-naked photos of the couple’s daughter on his laptop. The 71-year-old was jailed for 20 years.
