Nancy Mace says staff ‘sabotaged’ her: Republican accuses ex-aides of mismanaging $1million, hacking her phone, spying on medical records and dumping office devices in water in extraordinary interview

Three months ago, Nancy Mace’s office was in disarray.

The Republican representative has fired or lost nine staffers from her Washington, D.C., office in three months — and many of them trashed her in the media on her way out the door.

Now the South Carolina lawmaker has hit back dramatically, accusing the former aides of sabotage in an extraordinary interview with DailyMail.com.

Mace, 46, says the departed staffers mismanaged $1 million, hacked her phone, spied on medical records and even submerged electronic devices in water and deleted files to cover their tracks.

The mother of two claims they even went so far as to snoop on her children’s diaries and monitor doctor’s appointments.

‘I’ve known for a while that they were sabotaging the office. I didn’t know to what extent they were doing it,” Mace told DailyMail.com exclusively in a sit-down interview at her Capitol Hill home

Her new team is still trying to repair the damage.

‘I’ve known for a while that they were sabotaging the office. I didn’t know to what extent they were doing it,” Mace told DailyMail.com exclusively in a sit-down interview at her Capitol Hill home, the house at the center of a dispute between her and her ex-fiance.

‘They signed my name on documents they didn’t have permission to sign – one of them got flooded [my] electronic devices underwater so we couldn’t access their files. They deleted files, some deleted files from our server, so there was no documentation for the new staff coming in.”

In December, the congresswoman fired her chief of staff, Dan Hanlon, and then her deputy chief of staff, Richard Chalkey, and legislative director Randal Meyer resigned. By February, a total of nine employees had left the office.

Mace continued, “We had another former employee who would leak the names of the new employees we hired so that negative stories could be written about them.”

“We’ve even had interns leave because old staff threatened the interns, threatening that they would never get a job on the Hill if they worked in my office.”

Mace said she had another former staff member who hacked into her devices and followed her for nine months.

‘They could literally see where I was at any time. They could see my children’s schedules, doctor’s appointments and my medical information.”

‘The stories I have from some of my former employees are horrific and were a huge invasion of my privacy.’

But not only that, she said.

Mace continued, “We had another former employee who would leak the names of the new employees we hired so that negative stories could be written about them.”

“We’re finding thousands of dollars in bills that they haven’t paid,” the congressman continued. “Paperwork that wasn’t filed and should have been.”

Mace was furious when she discovered that her staff had left nearly $1 million on the table in her office budget. “It was $400,000 in 2022 and almost half a million in 2023,” she said.

“Our job is to manage our office, to be fiscally responsible, but to use everything we have to communicate our sharing services,” she said.

“If people don’t know, hey, you didn’t get your IRS refund in 2020, we’ll help you or if you need an appointment at the VA, and you’ve been waiting six months and you need help, we’ll get that appointment for you. Heck, I’ll even call the DMV if you can’t get in.’

“That money could have gone towards salaries and bonuses – especially if you’re a starter, it’s very difficult to make ends meet in DC,” she continued. ‘It was really scandalous.’

It is not clear who exactly set fire to the bridge when the staff left en masse. Mace claims her old staff was conspiring against her, and she has found help from a new group of assistants she can trust. But former Mace employees have described a “toxic” work environment.

A source familiar with the office’s day-to-day operations responded: “The swamp really got to Nancy Mace. A ‘fiscally conservative’ congresswoman is angry because the staff saved her constituents money?”

Any money not spent in an office budget goes back to the Treasury.

“I don’t think she ever understood that the office budget is not a personal bank account. Ask her mentor, Senator Paul. Every year he sends unused funds back to the Treasury to pay off the debt. Rep. Mace would rather spend taxpayer money on vanity mail than give a dime back to the American people.”

Two former staffers blamed Mace for failing to approve a $400,000 2022 mailing program before the deadline.

They denied that her personal devices had been hacked and said it was standard routine for elected officials to share their personal calendars with staff.

‘She had a personal calendar, a political calendar and an official calendar. All three of these calendars were managed and shared with senior staff so that we could carry out day-to-day operations. No one hacked her accounts. She set them all up.”

“She routinely tried to revoke access, saying ‘you can’t see my calendar anymore’ for a few weeks. And you know what, we couldn’t do our job.’

“This seems to stem from paranoia and trust issues,” said another former employee. ‘She is clearly unwell and I hope she gets help.’

“Everything the staff had access to was granted by her.”

The former assistant claimed that the “submerged device” charge stemmed from an employee dropping water on their computer and bringing it to the engineering team. “This wasn’t spying or anything.”

As for signing her name without her consent, “she is talking about business as usual, every office has a signature of a member. This is a stamp she instructed our team to use for administrative tasks she didn’t want to be bothered with.”

After former chief Dan Hanlon left office, he launched a short primary against her, backed by other former aides.

Mace has become a fixture on cable news since her election in 2020 — by design, according to former staffers who say she was “obsessed” with media attention.

The 46-year-old mother of two was stunned in May 2022 when her entrepreneur boyfriend Patrick Bryant got down on one knee and asked if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

“It all started with media attention,” a source familiar with the office told DailyMail.com. ‘We were free to set the legislative agenda. She was pretty hands-off during the process, which is pretty cool for a staffer. She was more focused on reaching Fox News.”

Mace responded, “Some people say I do it for TV interviews, but I turn down more than I actually do. So that’s not really consistent. People say I’m a flip-flopper, but no one can tell what I flip-flopped on. Literally no one.”

‘I don’t get anything out of it [doing TV]. I actually get more sadness. I mean, I get death threats every time I’m on TV.”

She scoffed at the suggestion that she was just focused on media attention, saying it was all just part of her ruthless ambition to excel at her job.

‘I work very hard. I work for the country seven days a week,” she said, mumbling that she had barely slept the night before.

She speaks passionately about her two pet issues: women’s rights, be it through moderate abortion laws or IVF protections, and gun violence prevention measures that don’t involve Second Amendment restrictions, such as Amber warnings of mass shootings.

Representative Nancy Mace and her fiancé broke up while her office was in disarray. Revelations about their split emerged as the staffers left

“It’s insulting to think that I can only be good at one thing, and that I try to be good at all things,” she added. “And that means I’m married to a job. That means I have no life.’

“I just saved a thousand jobs at a defense contractor in my district. Time and time again, the types of infrastructure projects that require permits have been accelerated, I’ve done it. We have done so much for the neighborhood.’

She even voted to impeach former Speaker Kevin McCarthy when he kept promises he reportedly made to place bills related to women’s issues and mass shooting prevention on the floor of the House of Representatives.

“I have worked steadfastly to draft a portfolio of legislation addressing women’s issues, women and girls, to protect victims and protect their rights.”

She continued, “As Republicans, we have a tough time, I think, when it comes to gun violence. You don’t have to sacrifice your principles to say, hey, we want to keep our kids safe. It shouldn’t be controversial to say we don’t want our children to be shot.”