Rep. Nancy Mace summoned Capitol police to her office in a bid to humiliate a fired campaign staffer who had called her out for political hypocrisy, according to a new report.
Slate published an extensive report Monday on the South Carolina Republican whose former staffers say has lost team members and credibility through her dogged pursuit of front-page publicity.
“Leadership doesn’t trust her, rank-and-file members think she’s a joke, she’ll never be able to be a chair of a committee because she’s not going to be able to fundraise in D.C.,” a former senior staffer told Slate. “She’s done.”
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The Slate report details the high demands Mace placed on staff in private and the angry accusations she has made against them in public, including one claim that they by hacking her phone and spying on her medical records.
It also reveals an encounter staffers had with Capitol police in December that senior politics writer Jim Newell described as "surreal."
Mace had hired Lorie Khatod as her new chief of staff to replace Dan Hanlon, who was first demoted then fired on the heels of her surprising vote to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, according to the report.
Sources told Slate that McCarthy had doomed Hanlon's job in a public response to Mace's claim that the ousted speaker had not kept his promises.
“You know what her chief of staff said?" McCarthy replied. "You have kept your word, 100 percent."
One staffer summarized the comment to Slate by saying simply, “McCarthy f---ed Dan.”
Khatod told Hanlon on Dec. 3 to come to the office the next day at 4 p.m. to collect his things — he had been fired, Slate reports. The following day, Mace's staff were told to go home early.
Some, according to the report, remained.
"At about 3:45, a slew of Capitol Police entered the office and told staff that they had no reason to fear anything, that they were there to protect them," writes Newell. "The officers, according to witnesses, said that they’d heard that an ex-employee had made threats to some of them and that that ex-employee was expected to come into the office at 4."
Staffers told Newell they had never heard Hanlon say anything that could resemble a threat nor did the claim track with what they knew of his character.
"The staffers who had remained there could not believe what was happening," Newell wrote. "The staff assumption was that either Mace, Khatod, or both had wanted to intimidate and humiliate Hanlon on his way out the door."
This report arrives just one day before Mace faces a primary race against Republican challenger Catherine Templeton.
Newell notes Mace is favored to win but argues she faces a troubled political future as she continues to infuriate her staff and fellow Republicans with her media-forward focus.
"Attention can be translated into power," writes Newell. "But it has also alienated Mace from colleagues and GOP leaders...Even if she advances, as she’s favored to, rebuilding her reputation in the House will not be easy."
One anonymous staffer reportedly put it more bluntly: “She has turned herself into what she hates.”