Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) pushed back on allegations that President Donald Trump had attempted to pressure her against signing a discharge petition in the House of Representatives to force a vote to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Mace spoke to The Independent exclusively as she headed to the House floor after a discharge petition proposed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) reached the requisite 218 signatures Wednesday after Speaker Mike Johnson swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.).
Mace said she had not spoken to Trump since Friday.
“I’ve been traveling, and I had a big press conference yesterday, so he and I’ve been on the road, but he and I’ve been playing phone tag,” she said.
She is one of three Republican women who joined the discharge petition alongside Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Boebert was summoned to the White House Wednesday for what was reportedly a crisis meeting in the super-secure Situation Room to try and get her to remove her name from the petition.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, praised Greene, Mace and Boebert for holding fast. All three of them sit on the committee with Garcia.
“I’m glad that they held and that they are obviously have a principal position on the Epstein files, and I’ve heard them talk about it,” he told The Independent.
“It’s unfortunate that not more Republicans were actually on the initial discharge. But I know in talking to many of them, that many of them are going to vote yes.”
Discharge petitions allow for members of Congress to go around the speaker if they earn a majority of signatures. Every Democrat already signed onto the discharge petition as well, with Grijalva giving the 218th vote. This means that after seven legislative days, Johnson will have two legislative days to name the time of the vote.
Mace is a sexual assault survivor who has spoken openly about how her rape as a teenager led to her dropping out of high school before she earned her GED and became the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, a prestigious military academy in South Carolina.
She first won her seat in Congress in 2020 and initially criticized Trump for the January 6 riot before moving considerably to the right and becoming one of the most outspoken critics of transgender people in Congress. In November of last year, she attempted to ban Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly transgender member of Congress, from using the women’s restroom.
But she has remained steadfast on supporting a discharge petition. After meeting with victims of Epstein’s in September, she left the room early and was seen emotionally distressed. On Wednesday, she posted a lengthy statement on X about being a survivor and sent it to Trump.
“As a survivor I will defend every last attack on President Trump to the death, everywhere,” she tweeted. “Just like I did on Stephanopoulos because I believe in HIM. And all this fake news, well, it’s just noise. I will NEVER abandon other survivors.”
But Mace said she faced no external pressure from the White House despite Trump’s vehement criticism of attempts to release the files.
“No one has threatened me,” she told The Independent. “The President hasn’t threatened me, and the President didn’t ask me get off the discharge petition.”
On Wednesday evening, Mace posted a lengthy statement on X that she said she sent the president.
Mace has perhaps the most to lose for signing the discharge petition. In August, Mace announced she would run for governor of South Carolina and would likely need Trump’s endorsement to win the Republican nomination.
But even if the discharge petition passes through the House, there is no guarantee the Senate will vote on the legislation. Trump has called the Epstein files investigation a “Democrat hoax that never ends.”
Boebert for her part avoided reporters when going in for votes on Wednesday evening.
