Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said a fear of being trapped in elevators — a condition known as cleithrophobia — prompted her to leave a meeting in tears last week with survivors of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse.
In a five-minute selfie video posted to X on Sunday, Mace said she became emotional after hearing several survivors’ accounts during the closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill. "I was okay until the third victim spoke. And it really hit close to home," she said in the video, adding that the survivor’s description of fearing elevators in the Capitol resonated with her own anxiety about elevators with strangers.
Mace, 47, who has publicly identified herself as a survivor of sexual assault, said the testimony made her feel less alone. "I think it really struck me that I'm not alone, and there are lots of us out there that have been fighting for years, and we don't have justice," she said in the video. She previously wrote on X that she experienced a "full blown panic attack" during the meeting, describing symptoms including sweating, hyperventilating and shaking.
The South Carolina Republican has been among a small group of lawmakers pressing for the release of additional Justice Department files related to Epstein. Mace is one of the signers of a discharge petition authored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that could force a House vote to release more documents. The petition requires 218 signatures to compel a floor vote; supporters said it has gathered 215 signatures.
The Justice Department has provided Congress with more than 32,000 pages of documents, and advocates for broader release say additional materials remain undisclosed. The department and other authorities previously released many records, but petition supporters have pushed for further transparency and have said new disclosures could include flight logs and other details.
The private meeting with nearly a dozen women preceded a public press conference on Capitol Hill the following day, where several survivors spoke for the first time and urged lawmakers to act on child sexual abuse reforms and to release more files. Among those who addressed the crowd was Chauntae Davies, a former actress who said she was introduced to Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell and later abused. Marina Lacerda, identified in previous indictments as a minor at the time she met Epstein, also spoke about the abuse she said she suffered.
During a nearly hour-long speech earlier this year on the House floor, Mace publicly named four men she accused of sexual abuse, including a former fiancé; those men have denied the allegations. In the video on X, Mace questioned the scope of the Epstein investigation, saying: "Look at the Epstein saga, over 1000 victims, only one accomplice. You can't tell me there are over 1000 victims and there is only one accomplice. Doesn't add up."
Mace’s account of her emotional reaction underscores how lawmakers and staff confront survivors' testimony in tightly controlled settings on Capitol Hill. The discharge petition process, if it reaches the required threshold of signatures, would limit House leadership's ability to block a floor vote on whether to make additional Epstein-related documents public. As of Mace’s post, supporters were short of the 218 signatures needed to force that vote.
Lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the aisle have cited survivors’ accounts to push for policy changes and greater transparency, while officials have noted that previous disclosures included materials already reported by news organizations. The debate over release of additional records continues amid ongoing calls from survivors for further investigation and accountability.