WASHINGTON — Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) let a “minor miscommunication” blow up into a profane “spectacle” when she repeatedly cussed at cops for being late to escort her through a South Carolina airport, an internal investigation has found.
Mace, 47, had expected Charleston Airport Police to walk with her to her gate promptly after being dropped off on the morning of Oct. 30 — but flew into a rage when a supervisor who misidentified her car delayed the congresswoman’s meetup with law enforcement, according to the 10-page report.
The South Carolina gubernatorial hopeful arrived at an unexpected location in a “grey/silver BMW” rather than a “white” one, as the supervisor — who the report said “read the email quickly and pass on incorrect information unintentionally” — had stated.
Use of the encrypted app Signal — which “[n]o other protectee” uses for communicating with officers — and complications due to the “high personnel turnover” rate in Mace’s office also “exacerbated” the situation, added the Nov. 12 report by Charleston Airport Police chief James A. Woods.
“While it is clear that we hold a certain level of responsibility in miscommunicating the color of Congresswoman Mace’s vehicle, it’s also equally clear that her continued failure to follow established procedures at the checkpoint is what turned a minor miscommunication over the color of a vehicle into the spectacle that this issue has become for our employees and airport workers,” it concluded.
Despite the delay, the South Carolina lawmaker was held up for no more than six minutes at a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint, during which time she tore into a supervisory TSA officer and later the cops who helped her to the gate, snapping at one point that she was “sick of your s–t.”
“[W]hen the Congresswoman arrived at the checkpoint, she was on her phone and telling someone on the other end of the line that she ‘shouldn’t be waiting,’ and that ‘this is always happening,’” relayed the security officer.
Mace also snarled on the phone that she would not be so inconvenienced if she was a senator, confirming an early account of the incident that quoted her as saying, “[GOP Sen.] Tim Scott [R-SC] would not be f–king treated this way.”
“You need to go and get whoever, because I’m not going through your TSA line,” she said in another testy exchange with the supervisory officer.
When airport police arrived, Mace turned her rage on them as they accompanied her to her flight.
“I’m sick of your s–t, I’m tired of having to wait. I should not have to wait. You guys are always [f–king] late, this is [f–king] ridiculous,” she fumed.
“She was still in the checkpoint area when the police officers arrived,” reported another supervisory TSA officer who “could hear the Congresswoman call them ‘f–king idiots’ and ‘f–king incompetent,’ while stating that she’s a ‘f–king representative’” and “that this sort of behavior was ‘very unbecoming if she’s representing us … in a political aspect.’”
That officer also described Mace’s tone as “very nasty [and] very rude,” while the report described other cops and security personnel as appearing “visibly upset” and feeling “downtrodden.”
None of the TSA officers were receiving paychecks at the time due to the federal government shutdown.
The congresswoman’s staff have asked for a security escort based on “multiple threats to her safety,” the report noted, but there have been “countless” times when officers were called to the curb to bring Mace to the boarding area, only to find that she “was not where she said that she would be.”
Mace’s office has also “never provided” information about specific threats to her safety when asked by airport police.
“We appreciate this full exoneration and look forward to remaining fully focused on the issues that actually matter to South Carolinians: affordability and law and order,” a spokesperson for Mace said in a statement after the report was released Monday.
In a Nov. 4 statement after the incident was first reported, Scott criticized Mace’s conduct, saying: “Those who know me know that I do not use profanity – in public or private.”
“It is never acceptable to berate police officers, airport staff, and TSA agents who are simply doing their jobs, nor is it becoming of a Member of Congress to use such vulgar language when dealing with constituents,” the South Carolina senator also said.
Mace is currently polling at 18%, one percentage point behind the GOP primary front-runner, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.
