Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Friday slammed former staffers for hacking her cell phone, mismanaging her funds, and stealing her electronic devices as part of an attempt to disrupt her tenure in Congress. accused of destroying it.
“I knew they had been sabotaging the office for a while,” said the South Carolina Republican. told the Daily Mail. “I didn’t know they were doing that.
“They were signing my name on documents that they didn’t have permission to do. One of them submerged the electronics so we couldn’t access the files anymore. They deleted the files and Some of them have deleted their files from our servers, so there will be no documents left for new staff coming in,” the 46-year-old claimed.
The 46-year-old congressman’s office has been plagued by staff turnover since October 2023, when he voted to expel former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Nine of Mace’s staff members left the office between December 2023 and February 2024, the paper said.
Former employees have described the working environment in Mace’s office as “toxic,” even claiming that Mace openly discusses his sex life with his ex-fiancée.
In January, her former chief of staff Dan Hanlon launched a brief campaign to endorse her in the primary in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, but ended his campaign two months later. .
Mace argued that the actions of some disgruntled employees made it difficult to prevent new hires from leaving.
“There was another former staff member who leaked the names of new employees we hired so that negative articles could be written about them,” she told the Daily Mail.
“I once had an intern quit because an older staff member threatened them and threatened them that if they worked in my office, they would never get a job on the Hill.”
Mace also claimed that a former staff member was able to hack into her device and track her and her two children’s whereabouts for months.
“Literally, they could see where I was at any given time. They could see my kids’ calendars, their doctor’s appointments, my medical information,” the South Carolina Republican said. said.
“The stories I heard from some of my former staff were horrifying and a gross invasion of my privacy.
“We found thousands of dollars in bills that they didn’t pay…documents that were supposed to be submitted were never submitted,” she claims, adding that former staff members left behind nearly $1. He told the media that he was furious when he found out. She has millions of dollars in unspent money that was supposed to be in her office.
“That money could have gone toward salary or bonuses. It’s really hard to make a living in Washington, D.C., especially if you’re starting out,” she argued. “It was truly outrageous.”
Any funds not spent by the Congressional Office will be transferred to the U.S. Treasury.
Two former staffers deny some of Mace’s claims, saying Mace did not approve hundreds of thousands of dollars in office spending and that the congressman’s personal calendar was routinely shared with staffers, the Daily Times said. told the Mail.
“No one hacked her account. She set everything up,” one of them said.
Another former employee countered that “paranoia and trust issues seem to be the culprits.”
“She’s clearly not feeling well and I hope she can get help.”
The former staffer added that the allegation that the device was submerged in water was simply water spilled on the computer.
As for the lawmaker’s claim that aides signed her name on documents without her permission, a former staffer said Mace instructed her team to use signature stamps “for paperwork that she didn’t want bothered with.”
Mace, the first Republican woman elected to the House of Representatives from South Carolina, has been serving since 2021 and is up for re-election in November.
