A congresswoman had the back of the Justice Department after a fiery House speech and subsequent social media activity found her ex-fiancé attempting a defamation suit.
Article I, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution isn’t the only legislation protecting federal lawmakers from consequences for the “Speech or Debate in either House.” In fact, those protections had been expanded to other federal employees in legislation that the U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, Bryan Stirling, was citing in defense of South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace (R).
Friday, the attorney had filed a certification in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina arguing that 1946 Federal Tort Claims Act, later amended through the 1988 Westfall Act to offer broader protections for federal employees’ actions during the course of their employment, shields Mace from a defamation suit filed by her ex-fiancé Brian Musgrave.
“Defendant Nancy Mace was acting within the scope of her office or employment as a Member of Congress at the time the alleged conduct took place,” wrote Stirling, “and, therefore, the Federal Tort Claims Act provides the exclusive remedy for any acts or omissions regarding the incident out of which the suit rose.”
Musgrave is one of four men that Mace had accused of “rape, nonconsensual photos, nonconsensual videos of women and underage girls, and the premeditated, calculated exploitation of women and girls in my district,” during a speech from the House floor in February.
Following the speech, and the social media posts advancing her claims, the ex-fiancé had filed suit in March, two months before Mace displayed a naked image of herself, said to have been taken without her consent, during a congressional hearing where she accused South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) of failing to prosecute the alleged sex offenses.
Nancy Mace shows nude photo of herself during hearing https://t.co/PJZB63YNS9
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) May 21, 2025
In response to the DOJ’s defense of Mace, Eric Bland, one of Musgrave’s attorneys, had told Post and Courier, “That’s what they waited all four months to come up with?”
“What happens if a politician sets their sights on you? How much can they wreck your lives? Obviously, they can wreck it a lot by what they say on the House floor, and she can do that. But are we just going to let them then go off the House floor, drive their car back to South Carolina and start tweeting up a storm to wreck your life, too?” asked the attorney. “And then just say that’s part of the legislative purpose of being a House member? It’s ridiculous. That is not what our framers intended.”
He further considered whether Mace had used “the guise of legislation” to pursue her own agenda against her former fiancé and as potential leverage for higher office, as a likely key issue in the case.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department made note of numerous instances in which courts had favored lawmakers against defamation claims, including under the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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