Reports say Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) had a knock-out plan for getting attention while rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

According to accounts in a piece published by The Washington Post on Wednesday, Mace begged aides to let her confront the mob, with the goal of getting roughed up and then leveraging the incident to be the face of an anti-Trump Republican sect.

Former staffers who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity said Mace was furious with the former president for inciting the riots and believed video of a violent altercation would “give credence to her anti-Trump position.”

Three sources who spoke to The Daily Beast corroborated the Post’s report, saying they heard Mace explicitly telling staffers she intended to “get punched in the face.”

“She literally begged us to let her leave the office and head to the floor so she could ‘get punched in the face’ and ‘get media attention,’” one former aide told The Daily Beast. “That’s word for word what she requested.”

The source added that there were “several of us in the office who heard it.”

Rep. Mace’s office did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment, but when approached by The Washington Post, the congresswoman replied, “What you write doesn’t pass for real journalism.”

Since Jan. 6, 2021, the legislator has made quite the dramatic about-face around Trump.

This week Mace endorsed Trump’s presidential bid ― a huge snub to her South Carolina ally Nikki Haley, who backed Mace in her 2022 reelection bid against a Trump-endorsed opponent.

“I don’t see eye to eye perfectly with any candidate,” Mace said during her endorsement. “And until now I’ve stayed out of it. But the time has come to unite behind our nominee.”

Read The Washington Post’s full report here.