ROK Justice Minister Nominee Says He Will Donate Wealth to Make Up For Shady Past
It is pretty clear that the Blue House is going to take the Kang Kyung-hwa approach to getting President Moon’s Justice Minister nominee approved:
Cho Kuk promised Friday to donate all his family’s scandal-plagued wealth to society in an attempt to keep his justice minister nomination from being derailed.
Cho, however, remained silent about suspected academic fraud and other scandals surrounding his daughter, which have become the focus of public disquiet over his controversial nomination.
“My family and I have been loved by society, but I failed to have the humility to look back on myself,” Cho said in a press conference broadcast live Friday afternoon. He promised to quickly donate his family’s investments in a private equity fund and its ownership of a private school foundation to society at large.
Joong Ang Ilbo
You can read more at the link, but the current ROK Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa had similar ethical issues as Cho and made face saving public statements like Cho is now making to get approved.
However, Cho’s ethical lapses are even worse than Kang’s:
He made clear, however, that he wouldn’t abandon his nomination to head the Ministry of Justice. “Please trust my sincerity and watch me till the end,” he said. “I will work with a humble attitude.”
Despite media reporting on suspicious wealth management, Cho insisted the family never used illegal means. While promising to donate the controversial family money and school foundation, Cho gave no explanation about any specific allegation.
After reading the brief statement about his family’s wealth, Cho ended the press conference without taking any questions. Conspicuously missing in his statement was any mention about the most volatile elements of the scandal surrounding his family, which involve his daughter.
Cho’s 28-year-old daughter, who currently attends Pusan National University’s Graduate School of Medicine, is suspected of having been wrongly cited as the first author of an English-language paper published in the Korean Journal of Pathology in 2008 and using that accomplishment to gain admission to Korea University in 2010.
The professor in charge of the controversial paper admitted Thursday that he had given special treatment to Cho’s daughter.
“She was responsible for experiments and editing of the paper,” Chang Young-pyo, a professor in the Department of Medical Science at Dankook University, told the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday. “I was responsible for data analysis and writing the first draft of the paper. I cannot deny that a favor was given to her by crediting her as the first author.”
You can read more at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that one of the reasons former ROK President Park Geun-hye was impeached was because the daughter of her friend Choi Soon-sil, received special treatment to get admitted to college as well.
