Nancy Mace’s new criticism of Alan Wilson is off base. Get ready for a nasty SC governor’s race. | Opinion
The floor of the U.S. House of Representatives has seen its fair and unfair share of speeches dating back to its first in 1789. But it had never seen anything quite like this.
Monday, South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace used a lectern that by law shields her from charges of slander to accuse four men by name of assaulting and recording her and other women in a speech that was part #MeToo manifesto and part political attack on a potential campaign rival.
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today ready to call out the cowards who think they can prey on women and get away with it,” she began. “Today I’m going scorched earth. So let the bridges I burn this evening light our way forward.”
Just as noteworthy as where she said it was what she didn’t say.
By the time she was done talking about the alleged predation, she seemed to really be done talking about it. She provided no evidence of her accusations — though she said she had it. And she did not elaborate on her remarks, leaving local and national reporters with lots of questions.
The men, whom we are not naming in McClatchy’s South Carolina opinion sections because they have not been charged with any crimes, adamantly denied wrongdoing, leaving voters and residents in general unsure of the truth of it just 16 months before a rough-and-tumble Republican primary that could give the governor’s mansion to Henry McMaster’s successor through 2034.
Mace let the stunning words in her nearly hourlong speech speak for themselves. Those words included heavy criticism of state Attorney General Alan Wilson, who like Mace is mulling a run for governor. Yet her criticism was misplaced. She blasted him for not investigating a matter that a state constitutional officer should know would involve the attorney general only after the end of an investigation by local or other state law enforcement authorities.
Wilson would no more open this investigation now than a man would open a door of a women’s bathroom in the Capitol Building.
Maybe that’s a bad analogy given Mace’s quest to keep the nation’s lone transgender representative out of the women’s bathroom at the Capitol. Or maybe it’s the truth of it.
Mace said she gave Wilson’s office “evidence, videos, photos, witness, victims” … “on a silver platter” and that he “turned the other cheek.” She didn’t say how or when or to whom.
“If Alan Wilson won’t do his job as attorney general, I will do it for him,” she said. “I am duty-bound to protect and find every single female victim out there, and I will do it. I will do it single-handedly if I have to.”
I alone can fix it. Now where have we heard that before? More and more each day, Mace’s political playbook mirrors the president’s. Supporters loved President Donald Trump’s anti-transgender TV campaign ad and his scorched-earth politics. Now Mace has made his tactics her own.
On Monday, she placed her hand on a Bible during her speech and swore to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God” a few feet from a large posterboard bearing a victims’ hotline number: (843) 212-7048. She also brought a set of handcuffs.
“I brought handcuffs with me today,” said Mace, holding them aloft for the camera to see. “If anyone would like to arrest me for standing up for women, here are my wrists. Arrest me. Take me to jail because I am 100% guilty of turning over evidence of peeping toms, of turning over evidence of rape, of turning over evidence of voyeurism, of turning over evidence of sex trafficking, and who knows, probably a heck of a lot more, and more crimes I don’t have time to get into tonight.
“I am 100% guilty of advocating for justice despite every effort to silence me.”
Moments later, she turned a page of her speech and turned her attention to Wilson as an aide replaced the hotline poster with one of Wilson labeled “DO-NOTHING ATTORNEY GENERAL.”
“Women who come forward in your system are treated like criminals, under your leadership, in your system and on your watch,” she said. “Attorney General Alan Wilson, you know that there were deliberate delays in an investigation of what I turned over: 228 days of delay and you know this, 228 days of delay. That’s seven months, two weeks and four days of delay to investigate.”
The details were damning enough without drawing Wilson into the fray. After her speech, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division announced that it had opened an investigation into allegations of assault, harassment and voyeurism in December 2023 after it had been contacted by the United States Capitol Police. That investigation is ongoing, it said.
Yet Wilson’s office said a police report would have to be filed first and then investigated by local police before it got referred to a solicitor or the Attorney General’s Office for prosecution. It said Mace has his personal cellphone and has seen him at multiple events recently yet said nothing.
“Ms. Mace either does not understand or is purposefully mischaracterizing the role of the attorney general,” the statement from Wilson’s office said. “At this time, our office has not received any reports or requests for assistance from any law enforcement or prosecution agencies regarding these matters. Additionally, the attorney general and members of his office have had no role and no knowledge of these allegations until her public statements.”
Mace’s remarks certainly left more questions than answers. What happened? What did Mace see in hidden camera files, phone videos and photos? What will investigators find? Will anyone be charged criminally, and with what charges? And will the governor’s race be this nasty?
“As in many areas, God’s word has given me wisdom,” Mace said on Monday night. “God’s love has shown me the light and God’s grace has given me the strength to be here today. God placed this burden in my path — not to crush me, but to ignite something within me. A calling. A purpose. A responsibility. And courage, which I am using in spades today.”
It was French writer Francois de La Rochefoucauld who said, “Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.”
Mace has shown courage before. She’s a survivor. She was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel’s Corps of Cadets in 1999. She was new to Congress when she criticized Trump for his comments on Jan. 6, 2021. Yet increasingly and often her moves are calculated: She didn’t share any evidence when making her remarks Monday. She gave them on the House floor, protected.
Eventually, the truth will emerge. It always does. We will know more then. But what’s obvious now is Rep. Nancy Mace is incapable of doing something big without “the world looking on.”
And she wants to become governor by tearing others down: transgender people, whom she described with an anti-trans slur at a recent committee meeting; 78-year-old The State reporter John Monk, whom she called a “dying breed” the other day when he asked if Trump should have pardoned violent Jan. 6 offenders; Alan Wilson.
Voters will have to decide if what they see is courage, cowardice or something in between.
The governor’s race hasn’t even started yet, and it’s already appalling.
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Nancy Mace’s new criticism of Alan Wilson is off base. Get ready for a nasty SC governor’s race. | Opinion."