Part of: Mace Federal Removal (Berg v. Bryant → D.S.C.) · House Ethics Committee Investigation of Rep. Nancy Mace (OCC Review 25-5681) · Berg v. Bryant (and Bryant's Third-Party Complaint against Mace) · Mace v. Bowman · Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg · Musgrave v. Mace (2:25-cv-01823-RMG) · Mace v. Bryant · Litigation Overview & Court-Filing Index
Ten months before accusing him from the House floor, Mace sued her ex-fiancé to split the beach house they owned together
On April 2, 2024, Mace filed a partition action against Brendan (Patrick) Bryant to divide or sell a jointly owned Isle of Palms beach house. Her own complaint records that she and the man she would later accuse of crimes each held 'an undivided one half' interest in the property.
On April 2, 2024, Nancy Mace filed an Action for Partition against Brendan Patrick Bryant in Charleston County (No. 2024-CP-10-01725), a routine civil suit to divide or sell real estate that two people own together. The property, her complaint states, is a beach house:
"3301 Palm Blvd, Isle of Palms, SC 29451 … The Plaintiff, Mace, is the owner of an undivided one half (1/2) interest in the above-described premises. The remaining undivided interest is owned by Defendant Bryant."
"The property was to be rented as a vacation rental to help sustain and pay the property's mortgage, insurance, and tax payments."
The complaint is unremarkable as a legal matter. Its significance is the relationship and the timeline it documents: as of spring 2024, Mace and Bryant were co-owners and co-investors in an Isle of Palms vacation rental, splitting a mortgage 50/50. The dispute here was about money and property, not the conduct Mace would later allege against Bryant from the floor of the U.S. House ten months later, on February 10, 2025 (allegations Bryant disputes and that remain unproven).
The parties settled this property dispute at mediation on May 28, 2024, and the case was dismissed without prejudice that October, each side bearing its own costs. The terms of that settlement, and what happened next, are the subject of a separate dispatch.
No characterization of either party is offered here. The filing is reported because it establishes, in Mace's own words, the financial partnership that preceded her later public accusations.
Source: Nancy Ruth Mace v. Brendan Patrick Bryant, Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, No. 2024-CP-10-01725, Summons & Complaint (Action for Partition), filed April 2, 2024. Public record via the S.C. Judicial Branch Public Index. See also Patrick Bryant.
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June 27, 2025 · DispatchMace's own motion shows she signed a quitclaim deed to her ex-fiancé on Feb. 13, 2025, three days after accusing him of crimes on the House floor
Mace's June 27, 2025 motion to enforce her settlement with Brendan (Patrick) Bryant documents that she executed a quitclaim deed transferring the beach house to him on Feb. 13, 2025, days after her Feb. 10 floor speech, while their property settlement was still being carried out.
September 4, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace loses in federal court: Bryant's suit accusing her of defamation and a blackmail conspiracy moves forward
Nancy Mace has lost in federal court. On September 4, 2026, U.S. District Judge Bruce H. Hendricks rejected her pro se bid to move the case out of state court, ruling her removal untimely 'by several measures,' and remanded Berg v. Bryant to the Charleston County Court of Common Pleas. That sends Patrick Bryant's third-party case against Mace forward in state court, a case that accuses her of defamation and of a civil conspiracy to hack his phone and blackmail him into signing over property. The Court affirmed the magistrate judge's recommendation with modifications, overruled Mace's objections, denied her motion for oral argument, and terminated her duplicate federal case as moot. The ruling is procedural: it does not reach the merits, and Mace's immunity defenses travel with the case. The order (ECF No. 36) is reproduced below. The allegations are disputed and unproven; Mace denies Bryant's claims, and Bryant denies Mace's.
June 17, 2026 · DispatchA federal magistrate recommends sending the case Mace removed to federal court back to state court, finding her pro se removal 'untimely': 'it is RECOMMENDED that Bryant's Motion to Remand be GRANTED and that the case be REMANDED to state court.'
On June 17, 2026, U.S. Magistrate Judge Molly H. Cherry issued a Report and Recommendation in the case Rep. Nancy Mace removed to federal court (Berg v. Bryant, docketed federally as No. 2:26-cv-00305-BHH-MHC), recommending that the case be remanded to state court. The recommendation is procedural, not a ruling on the truth of anyone's allegations: the magistrate found that Mace, who removed the case and briefed the remand motion pro se, was on notice the case was removable by December 12, 2025, so her January 29, 2026 removal of the entire case was untimely. A Report and Recommendation is not a final order; the parties have 14 days to object, and U.S. District Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks will make the final decision. The underlying allegations are disputed and contested; Mace denies Bryant's claims, and Bryant denies Mace's.
June 16, 2026 · DispatchCourt appoints former Judge Kristi Harrington as third-party neutral to sort the 11,000+ disputed files in Mace's Google Drive
On June 16, 2026, Judge Donald B. Hocker appointed Kristi Harrington, a Charleston attorney and former South Carolina Circuit Court judge, to serve as a 'third-party neutral' in Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg (Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, No. 2025-CP-10-2671), one of the cluster of cases tied to Rep. Nancy Mace and her former fiance, Patrick Bryant. Harrington's task is to review the more than 11,000 electronic files in what the court calls 'Mace's Google Drive,' files that both Mace and Bryant claim to own, and decide which, if any, must be turned over in discovery. The court split her fees between the two camps, warned the volume could make the process 'very cost-prohibitive,' and entered the order over Mace's objection. The order makes no finding on privilege, admissibility, ownership, or wrongdoing; the underlying allegations remain contested and unproven.
June 8, 2026 · DispatchGretchen Carlson, who helped write the Speak Out Act, files a sworn declaration backing Alexis Berg
On June 8, 2026, Alexis Berg's counsel filed a reply brief in Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg (No. 2025-CP-10-2671) arguing that the federal Speak Out Act makes the non-disparagement clause ADW is suing on judicially unenforceable, because the dispute before the court involves sexual-assault allegations. Attached was a sworn declaration from Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News anchor whose 2016 case helped inspire the Act, who states she has met with Berg and that 'this is exactly the situation we fought to address,' and offers to testify. ADW argues the Act does not apply. The motion is undecided; the underlying allegations are contested and denied.
July 6, 2026 · DispatchPro Se: Nancy Mace has lost her lawyers again, this time in her own defamation suit against Eric Bowman
On July 6, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace filed a Motion to Lift Stay in her own defamation case against Eric Bowman, and she filed it pro se, representing herself. On the coversheet she crossed out the entire 'Plaintiff's Attorney' block by hand, wrote 'N/A,' and wrote 'Pro Se.' The motion states she 'is now proceeding pro se in this matter, as reflected in the Notice filed June 30, 2026.' It is the second time in this cluster of cases she has gone without counsel. The three attorneys who filed and briefed the Bowman case for her, local counsel Andrew B. Moorman, Sr. and the two Washington lawyers she brought in pro hac vice, William M. Sullivan, Jr. and Alex G. Anderson, are no longer her counsel of record. A separate notice filed the same day names all three and asks the Clerk of Court to remove them. The complete eight-page motion, and the counsel-withdrawal notice, are reproduced below. Allegations on every side are contested and unproven; Bowman denies Mace's claims and has moved to dismiss, and Mace denies Bowman's.