Nancy Mace escalated airport incident into ‘spectacle’, police investigation says

A police investigation has found that Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican congresswoman, turned a “minor miscommunication” by police into a “spectacle” when she involved herself in a heated confrontation with staff at Charleston’s airport in late October.

According to an internal investigation by the Charleston airport police department and obtained by the Washington Post, Mace berated officers and Transportation Security Administration ( TSA) personnel on 30 October with profanity and insults, leaving facility employees “visibly upset”.

The investigative report, dated 12 November, said there had been some confusion over whether the congresswoman would arrive at the airport in a white BMW when she in fact arrived in a silver model. That led to a delay in meeting up with an escort to take her through the security line at the airport.

The airport police chief, James Woods, wrote in the report that the Charleston airport holds “a certain level of responsibility” for a “minor miscommunication” about the color of the vehicle that Mace came in, as the Post noted. But the congresswoman’s “continued failure to follow established procedures at the checkpoint” escalated the situation into “a spectacle”.

The investigation found Mace told officers “I’m sick of your shit.” She also reportedly said that officers were “fucking idiots” and “fucking incompetent” – and yelled that she was a “fucking representative” in the US House.

An airport employee described Mace’s tone as “very nasty, very rude” and “very unbecoming if she’s representing us” as a member of Congress. One described feeling “downtrodden”.

However, Mace’s office told the Post that the report was “a full exoneration” of the congresswoman – who is running for governor of South Carolina in 2026.

The report indicates that Mace and Charleston airport employees had clashed previously. She reportedly arrived at the airport earlier in the year with a relative only to be delayed while an agent sought approval for the relative’s smooth passage through TSA security.

That also triggered an outburst of profanity and complaints of mistreatment, the report said. Two police officers said Mace was “rarely on time – and that this is often exacerbated by the fact that their communication is often relayed through multiple staffers”. They noted that Mace “appears to have high personnel turnover”.

The Guardian reported in November that Mace cited the 10 September killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk as well as two attempted assassinations of Donald Trump as he successfully ran for a second presidency for her concern for her personal safety.

She has also threatened to sue American Airlines and Charleston airport over the October airport confrontation. At a subsequent news conference, she accused airport staff of manufacturing “false and misleading incident reports” about her conduct.

“I’m not going to be the next person shot and killed in cold blood,” Mace said. “I absolutely, 100% confronted the airport employees who put my safety at risk. Did I drop an F-bomb? I hope I did. Did I call them incompetent? If I didn’t, they absolutely earned it.”