Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) started a social media firestorm late Thursday after implying that the so-called “Cornell 7” assault case was not rape but consensual.
“IDK who needs to hear this, but a consensual gangbang is not a rape,” Mace wrote on X in a message viewed more than 2.6 million times since she posted it late Thursday:
The alleged victim, a female Cornell student identified anonymously as “Jane Doe,” has accused seven fraternity brothers of raping her in a lawsuit, prompting local authorities to reopen a criminal investigation for a grand jury review.
Mace’s viral post came after a trove of texts surfaced this week showing the accuser engaged in friendly chats with some of the men after the October 2024 sexual encounter, telling them that they shouldn’t “feel any shame.”
“Our body our choice,” the accuser wrote in one.
However, the woman’s attorney in her civil case, Thomas Giuffra, told the New York Post Thursday that the seemingly exonerating texts for the men were part of the early stage of her mentally and emotionally processing that night as she “was going through denial, shame, and ultimately acceptance.”
The accuser’s recollections changed in part when she saw group chats between the frat brothers advertising “free p—y,” including one later bragging that she’d been part of an “eightsome,” the Post reported.
Reaction to Mace’s post was no doubt fueled by dramatic claims she had made on the floor of Congress in February 2025 claiming that, based on videos and photographic evidence she allegedly found, her ex fiancée Patrick Bryant had participated in the apparent rape of an incapacitated woman.
Mace told Congress, “The two of them, the three of them business partners, the two of them had their phones out just like this. Filming her as she was being raped.”
She continued, “And she was completely laid out. There was no movement. There was no life. I couldn’t even tell if this young woman was alive.”
Bryant emphatically denied the claims and filed a lawsuit accusing her of “blackmail,” which was ultimately thrown out by a Charleston judge.
An investigation by state authorities into the allegations made on the House floor against Mace’s former fiancée still reportedly remains open nearly two years later.
Her advocacy in the speech on the house floor triggered charges of hypocrisy among the thousands of reactions she received for her comment on the Cornell 7.
“Welp, so much for your ‘crusade’ for women’s rights!” one person wrote.
But not all condemned her.
“And making false rape accusations to police or in court should carry the same penalty as rape,” wrote one responder.
The case has created some sharp divides, much like the high-profile 2006 alleged gang rape case where Duke University lacrosse players were falsely accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer at a team party in Durham, North Carolina. Authorities and news outlets were quick to believe the accuser, who was later completely discredited and the local district attorney ended up resigning in disgrace.
The recent lawsuit triggered an explosion of national interest several years after the incident occurred, with the local prosecutor on the case, as Breitbart News reported, explaining why no charges were filed in 2024.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said the accuser’s story today is different than the one his office considered after the incident.
He explained to ABC News, “She never says that she was drugged without her knowledge. She admits to taking drugs and alcohol voluntarily and with knowledge. She does not allege that she was forced to engage in any acts. She does not say that she was physically helpless or unconscious or incapacitated at any point during the time at the fraternity house.”
As for Mace’s future, that remains unclear.
The three-term Congresswoman finished a distant fifth in her state’s Republican primary for governor earlier this year.
Mace has said she will transition into the private sector after she leaves office but promises to remain active commenting on politics.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
