The sealed files are now open. A Republican congresswoman has ripped the lid off a secret fund that paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to silence sexual harassment victims—and she's naming names.
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina dropped a bombshell on social media Monday, revealing that a subpoena she issued has uncovered settlements totaling $338,000 from what she calls Congress's sexual harassment slush fund.
"Nine members named," Mace posted. "Records before 2004 — destroyed. 357 members of Congress voted to keep it hidden. We're leading the charge to release them despite their opposition."
Then she listed the names and dollar amounts, exposing who got paid and how much—with no context offered, just cold, hard numbers that speak volumes.
The list is damning: in 2007, Rodney Alexander settled for $15,000. The office of Carolyn McCarthy paid $8,000 in 2009. Eric Massa appeared three times—$85,000, $20,000, and $10,000. John Conyers had two payouts: $50,000 in 2014 and $27,111.75 in severance. Blake Farenthold settled for $84,000 in 2014. Patrick Meehan's two cases led to $39,250 in severance in 2017.
Mace has been on a crusade for transparency. In February, she demanded the House Ethics Committee release all information on allegations against members, declaring, "If you sexually harass someone in Congress you do not get to hide behind closed doors."
"The American people deserve answers. Staff deserve answers. Women deserve answers," she said. "No more protection for predators in Congress. We are going to shine a light on every single one of them."
But her resolution was crushed—defeated by 357 members on both sides of the aisle, a vote she called a desperate move to "protect themselves and their friends."
Undeterred, Mace issued a subpoena to the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, demanding all awards and settlements for misconduct paid before December 12, 2018. "For too long, Congress has swept this under the rug, protecting predators at the expense of victims and taxpayers. Those days are over," she said.
"The American people have unknowingly been paying for this cover-up. We will not rest until these names are released and every predator in Congress has no other choice but to resign," she added.
Context matters. The office she subpoenaed handles a range of complaints, not exclusively sexual harassment. Between 1996 and 2018, 349 settlements were approved—80 by legislative offices, and only seven specifically addressed sexual harassment allegations.
The settlement language often read like a quiet handshake: funds were agreed upon "to avoid the inconvenience of protracted litigation and the expense to the parties and the taxpayers." A Treasury account that once funded these payoffs has since been closed. And notably, none of the individuals Mace named are still serving in Congress.
