Nancy Mace says staff 'sabotaged' her: Republican accuses ex-aides of mismanaging $1million, hacking her phone, spying on medical records and dumping office devices in water in extraordinary interview

Three months ago, Nancy Mace's office was in disarray. 

The Republican congresswoman fired or lost nine staffers from her Washington D.C. office in three months - and many of them trashed her to the media on the way out. 

Now, the South Carolina lawmaker has dramatically hit back and accused the former aides of sabotage in an extraordinary interview with DailyMail.com.

Mace, 46, says the departed staffers mismanaged $1million, hacked her phone, spied on medical records, and even submerged electronic devices in water and deleted files to cover their tracks.

The mother-of-two claims they even went as far snooping on her childrens' calendars and would monitor doctor appointments.

Her new team is still trying to repair damage, she said. 

'I knew that they were sabotaging the office for a while. I didn't know to the extent that they were doing it,' Mace told DailyMail.com in a sit-down interview at her Capitol Hill home, the one at the center of a dispute between her and her ex-fiancé. 

'They were signing my name on documents they didn't have permission to do - one of them submerged their electronic devices under water so we couldn't access their files. They deleted files, some of them deleted files off our server, so there'd be no documentation for the new staff that were coming in.'

In December, the congresswoman fired her chief of staff Dan Hanlon, then her deputy chief of staff, Richard Chalkey, and legislative director, Randal Meyer, resigned. A total of nine staffers had departed the office by February.  

Mace went on: 'We had another former staffer that would leak the names of the new employees we were hiring so that negative stories could be written about them.'  

'We even had interns quit because old staff threatened the interns, threatened that they would never get a job on the hill if they worked in my office.' 

Mace said she had another former staff member who hacked her devices and was tracking her for nine months. 

'Literally, they could see where I was at all times. They could see my kids' calendars, my doctors' appointments, my medical information.' 

'The stories I have from some of my former staff are horrific, and were a massive invasion of my privacy.' 

But not only that, she said. 

'We're finding thousands of dollars in bills they didn't pay,' the congresswoman went on. 'Paperwork that didn't get filed that was supposed to.' 

Mace was irate to find out that her staff had left close to $1 million on the table in her office budget. 'It was $400,000 in 2022 and close to half a million in 2023,' she said. 

'It's our job to manage our office, be fiscally responsible, but to use everything we have to communicate our constituent services,' she said. 

'If people don't know that, hey, you didn't get your IRS refund in 2020,w e'll help you or if you need an appointment at the VA, and you've waited for six months and you need assistance, we'll get that appointment for you. Heck, I'll even call the DMV if you can't get in the DMV.' 

'That money could have also gone toward salaries, bonuses - especially if you're entry level, it's really hard to get by in D.C.,' she went on. 'It was really outrageous.'

It's not clear who exactly burned the bridge as the staff departed en masse. Mace claims her old staff was plotting against her, and she's found relief in a new group of aides she can trust. But former Mace employees have described a 'toxic' worked environment. 

A source familiar with the daily operations of the office shot back: 'The swamp has truly gotten to Nancy Mace. A 'fiscally conservative' congresswoman is upset that staff saved her constituents money?' 

Any money unspent in an office budget goes back to the Treasury. 

'I guess she never understood that the office budget is not a personal bank account. Ask her mentor, Senator Paul. Every year he sends unspent funds back to the Treasury to pay down the debt. Rep. Mace would rather spend tax money on vanity mail pieces than return a dime back to the American people.' 

Two former staffers laid blame on Mace for failing to give approval for a $400,000 mailing program in 2022 before deadline. 

They denied that her personal devices had been hacked, and said it was standard routine for elected officials to share their personal calendars with staff. 

'She had a personal calendar, a political calendar, and official calendar. All three of those calendars were managed and shared with senior staff so that we could go about the daily operations. No one hacked her accounts. She set them all up.'

'She routinely would try to revoke access, be like 'you can no longer see my calendar' for a couple of weeks. And you know what, we couldn't do our jobs.'

'This seems to be stemming from paranoia and trust issues,' another former staffer said. 'She's clearly unwell and I hope she gets help.' 

'Everything the staff had access to was granted by her.' 

The former aide claimed that the 'submerged device' allegation stemmed from a staff member who dropped water on their computer and took it to the tech team. 'This wasn't espionage or something.' 

As for signing her name without her permission, 'she's talking about the run-of-the-mill, every office has hand stamp of a member. This is a stamp that she had directed our team to use for clerical tasks that she didn't want to be bothered with.'

After former chief Dan Hanlon left the office, he launched a brief primary run against her, propped up by other former aides. 

Mace has become a fixture on cable news since her election in 2020 - by design, according to former staffers who say she was 'obsessed' with media attention. 

'Everything started with media attention,' one source familiar with the officetold DailyMail.com. 'We were free to drive the legislative agenda. She was pretty hands off in the process, which is pretty cool for a staffer. She was more focused on getting on Fox News.' 

Mace shot back: 'Some people say I do it for TV interviews, but I turn down more than I actually do. So that's not really consistent. People say I'm a flip flopper, but then nobody can say what I flip flopped on. Literally no one.' 

'I don't get anything out of [doing TV]. I actually get more grief. I mean, I get death threats every time I go on TV.' 

She scoffed at the suggestion that she was only focused on media attention, said it was all just part of her relentless ambition to excel at the job. 

'I work really hard. I work seven days a week for the country,' she said, muttering that she'd hardly had a wink of sleep the night before. 

She speaks passionately about her two pet issues - women's rights, be it through moderate abortion laws or IVF protection, and gun violence prevention measures that don't involve restricting the Second Amendment, like Amber alerts for mass shootings.  

'It's insulting to think that I can only be good at one thing, and I try to do good in all things,' she added. 'And that means I'm married to a job. That means I don't have a life.'  

'I just saved 1,000 jobs at a defense contractor in my district. Time and time again, the kind of infrastructure projects that need permits expedited, I've done it. We've just done so much for the district.' 

She even voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy when he did keep promises he allegedly made to put bills related to women's issues and mass shooting prevention on the House floor. 

'I've worked steadfastly on on doing a portfolio of legislation related to women's issues women and girls, to protect victims protect their rights.'

She went on: 'As Republicans, we have a difficult time I think messaging on gun violence. You don't have to sacrifice your principles to say, hey, we want to keep our kids safe. It shouldn't be controversial to say we don't want our kids shot.'