Last month, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) delivered a speech on the House floor in which she accused her ex-fiance and three of his friends of being sexual "predators" who'd routinely filmed themselves raping, sexually assaulting, and trafficking an untold number of women, including herself, and underage girls.

Now one of the men that Mace accused, Brian Musgrave, has struck back with a lawsuit that accuses the GOP congresswoman from South Carolina of defamation and libel, the New York Post reported.

The lawsuit, which was filed after Mace ignored a deadline from Musgrave's attorneys to provide evidence for her claims or retract them, seeks an award of unspecified damages as compensation for the harm she did to his reputation.

Congresswoman makes huge allegations in floor speech

In her floor speech last month, Rep. Mace claimed that she'd discovered thousands of photos and video evidence of alleged sex crimes on the phone of Patrick Bryant, her ex-fiance whom she accused of wrongdoing alongside three of his friends and business partners, including Musgrave.

"These men didn’t just harm their victims; they recorded their depravity as if it were a badge of honor," Mace asserted, per the Post. "These men aren’t just criminals -- they’re predators."

She further alleged that the four men co-owned properties that had been outfitted with hidden cameras and were used to engage in non-consensual sexual activities with the women and girls they'd trafficked and victimized, including herself.

Mace declined opportunity to apologize or retract allegations

Those allegations were strenuously denied by the four named men and, according to the South Carolina Daily Gazette, Rep. Mace was granted an opportunity by Musgrave's attorneys in a letter sent a couple of weeks ago that directed her to "disclose evidence of the allegations, publicly apologize, or prepare to get sued."

The congresswoman did none of that and instead has doubled down on the accusations, which resulted in the filing on Friday of Musgrave's defamation and libel lawsuit, which asserts that "Congresswoman Nance Mace and her team destroyed the lives of Brian Musgrave and his family."

"Perhaps the Defendants felt that the message was so powerful that a little collateral damage in the form of Brian Musgrave’s name and reputation was acceptable," the suit stated. "It is not acceptable to Brian Musgrave. It is not acceptable to his family," which includes his wife of more than two decades and their two children.

Testing the limits of the "Speech and Debate Clause"

One major hurdle Musgrave will have to overcome for his lawsuit to succeed is the so-called "Speech and Debate Clause" of the U.S. Constitution that has been broadly interpreted over the nation's history to provide members of Congress with seemingly absolute protection against any criminal charge or civil suit for things said or done as part of their congressional duties.

Musgrave and his attorneys intend to "test the limits" of that purported protection, as the suit declared that it "does not transform the floor of Congress into a sanctuary for defamation, nor does it protect Congresswoman Mace’s extra-Congressional defamatory statements surrounding her speech."

In a press release from the Bland Richter law firm to announce Musgrave's lawsuit, the attorneys said their client "seeks to restore his good name and reputation as he enjoyed the same prior to Nancy Mace’s false accusations. As one can imagine, these accusations have not only destroyed Brian Musgrave, but have also inflicted great pain on his wife and children."

"While Congresswoman Mace is afforded certain protections for her activities as a member of Congress," the release acknowledged, "the suit seeks to test the legal limits of that protection, as Musgrave contends the mere fact Ms. Mace was elected to serve as a United States Congresswoman does not grant her the power to destroy a man’s reputation with impunity and use the hallowed floor of the House of Representatives as a sanctuary to destroy him."

The attorneys added, "It is unfortunate that Ms. Mace has rejected the repeated offers simply to retract her allegations against Brian Musgrave and apologize. She has elected instead to litigate these matters. Truth is the defense to defamation. Brian Musgrave welcomes the truth."