Representative Nancy Mace’s congressional spending is still the talk of the town. On this week’s agenda: her $1.6 million D.C. townhouse.
The South Carolina Republican was accused of “secretly fleecing taxpayers,” in an ethics complaint filed earlier this week alleging she sought higher monthly lodging reimbursements than what was actually warranted by her expenses.
“Representative Mace has violated House Ethics Rules by repeatedly seeking reimbursement for lodging in excess of the actual monthly expense of maintaining her co-owned townhouse in Washington, D.C., resulting in a misuse of taxpayer funds for purposes unrelated to her official duties,” read a copy of the complaint obtained by Punchbowl News.
Mace’s requests violate two key rules of a congressional reimbursement program, according to the complaint: Lawmakers cannot be repaid for interest or principal on their mortgage payments, and they cannot ask to be repaid for more than their actual expenses.
The complaint came on the heels of a lengthy investigation by The Washington Post into Mace’s spending habits. Two former staffers told the Post that Mace repeatedly directed her team to file for reimbursements to the tune of $2,000 a month, despite being informed by people involved in her office finances that she could not justify claiming more than $1,726 a month. During some months of the year, she filed to be reimbursed upward of $3,000—nearly double what her team had calculated.
“This allegation alone deserves further investigation as well as interviews of former staff,” the complaint said. “If true, then this is a flagrant abuse of House Rules and a clear example of a Member secretly fleecing taxpayers.”
“Money is fungible, so the thousands of excess dollars received by [Representative] Mace could conceivably have been put towards any use,” the complaint alleged, noting that if the anecdotes offered by her former staffers were true, she would have twice violated the program’s statutes.
