Washington – An Illinois man who was subsequently charged with assault reportedly shaking U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s hand in an “exaggerated, aggressive” manner entered a not guilty plea.
James McIntyre, 33, of Chicago, was charged Tuesday evening after an encounter at the Rayburn House office building. Mace, a South Carolina Republican, said in a social media post earlier this week that the encounter left her requiring a wrist brace and ice on her arm.
Mace told police that McIntyre said, “Trans youth for advocacy,” as she shook her hand. The Rayburn Building was open at the time of the incident and Capitol Police reported that McIntyre had undergone a security clearance.
She added at the time that she would be “fine once the aches and pains go away,” but published a series of posts on X on Wednesday accusing the media of “using the attack on me to support misogyny on the left ‘. ‘, and added: ‘When the left said ‘believe all women’, perhaps they really meant men who claim to be women.’
She said President-elect Donald Trump called to check on her after the incident. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, told reporters on Wednesday that “no member of Congress should be targeted, targeted or attacked based on their political beliefs,” calling the incident “very disturbing”.
Last month, Mace stepped into the center of the controversy over transgender rights when she introduced legislation to change House rules to ban transgender women from using women’s bathrooms and other facilities on Capitol Hill.
Mace’s two-page resolution would ban House members, officers and employees from using single-sex facilities in the Capitol or House of Representatives office buildings that do not correspond to their “biological sex,” but that proposal came just before the House was prepared to take the oath. the first openly transgender member of CongressRepresentative-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware.
After the encounter earlier this week, Mace refused to be treated by a paramedic. She has since posted several photos of herself in an arm brace on social media.
A magistrate judge ordered McIntyre’s release following an arraignment in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Attempts to reach an attorney for McIntyre were not immediately successful.
Adam Harrington, Melissa Quinn and Eric Henderson contributed to this report.
