Category: Politics-Korea

Imagine if American politicians could be jailed for lying to the public? The U.S. wouldn’t have a government:

Prosecutors on Wednesday demanded a two-year prison term for opposition leader Lee Jae-myung on charges of lying as a presidential candidate during the 2022 election.

Lee of the Democratic Party (DP) is considered the presidential frontrunner in the event President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment is upheld, but confirmation of his lower court sentence of one year in prison, suspended for two years, would bar him from running in the next presidential election in 2027.

The opposition leader is accused of lying during a media interview in December 2021 that he did not know the late Kim Moon-ki, a former executive of Seongnam Development Corp., which was behind a corruption-ridden development project in Seongnam, south of Seoul, when Lee was the city’s mayor.

During the final hearing of his appellate trial in the day, the prosecution said Lee deserves “a heavy punishment for distorting voters’ choices by telling a lie.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is amazing how many of Korea’s elites have been involved with plagiarism to attain their degrees:

South Korean first lady Kim Keon Hee’s master’s thesis submitted to Sookmyung Women’s University looks set to be deemed plagiarized, according to local reports Tuesday.

In 1999, Kim earned a master’s degree in art education from the Graduate School of Education at Sookmyung. Plagiarism allegations first surfaced decades later, in December 2021, as scrutiny of her credentials intensified after her husband, Yoon Suk Yeol, emerged as a strong presidential candidate at the time.

Following an accusation filed by an alumnae group calling themselves the “Democratic Alumnae Association,” Sookmyung’s research ethics committee officially launched a preliminary investigation into the case in February 2022. After 10 months, in December 2022, a full-fledged probe began.

The process was criticized for taking an unusually long time, far exceeding the 60-day period designated for a preliminary review and the 30 days within which a decision to launch a full investigation should have been made.

Finally this January, the university concluded that Kim in fact committed plagiarism.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but Kim Keon-hee may lost her Master’s degree and possibly even her Phd due to this plagiarism finding.

Things are not looking good for Yoon with the majority of the ROK public wanting his impeachment upheld:

More than half of South Koreans said the Constitutional Court should uphold the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol to remove him from office for his short-lived martial law declaration, a survey showed Monday.

In the same survey, 50.7 percent replied they viewed the Constitutional Court’s impeachment trial process to be “fair,” while 45 percent said it was “unfair.”

According to the survey by Realmeter on 1,006 people aged 18 and older conducted last Thursday and Friday, 52 percent of the respondents said the court should rule to dismiss Yoon, while 45.1 percent said it should reinstate him as president following his impeachment by the National Assembly in December.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I wonder if Hong has an immunity deal of some kind in return for his testimony? If so it should be disclosed:

A list of politicians who President Yoon Suk Yeol allegedly ordered to be arrested has been at the center of the president’s impeachment trial this month along with the whistleblower who disclosed it as crucial evidence. Hong Jang-won, one of 16 witnesses summoned in Yoon’s impeachment, which began on Jan. 14, is the only figure who has been called into the Constitutional Court twice.

As a graduate of the 43rd class of the Korea Military Academy, Hong worked as South Korea’s top spy specializing in overseas intelligence and North Korea for over 30 years. (…….)

Hong appeared in court again on Thursday after the president’s legal team raised concerns about the credibility of his testimony. Hong’s testimony given on Feb. 4 drew significant attention as he claimed that Yoon ordered him to arrest key political figures on the night of the short-lived martial law declaration on Dec. 3.

“Take this opportunity to round them (the lawmakers) all up. The NIS will be given counterespionage authority, so for now, assist the Defense Counterintelligence Command (in doing so),” Yoon told him, according to Hong. (……..)

According to Hong, soon after Yoon called him at 10:53 p.m., he received a call from then-DCC chief Yeo In-hyeong, who listed the names of the people to be arrested that night.

“‘Is he insane?’ I thought, and then I stopped writing (people’s names) during the call,” Hong testified in court on Feb. 4, recalling his reaction as he heard the names.

“Lee Jae-myung, Woo Won-shik, Han Dong-hoon, Park Chan-dae, Cho Kook…” Hong listed the names without hesitance when Yoon’s lawyer asked who they were.

However, NIS Director Cho Tae-yong — Hong’s boss — raised strong doubts about the veracity of the alleged note during his own testimony as a witness on Feb. 13.

“I’ve checked the surveillance camera footage,” Cho told the court, adding that Hong was in his office at the time when he claims he was near Cho’s official residence.

Hong on Thursday admitted to a “slight error” in his memory.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but how do you have memory lapses with something as significant as this?

According to the latest Gallup poll, the DPK has risen in popularity while the PPP has slide by five points:

The support rating for the ruling People Power Party fell as the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea regained its lead in terms of party affiliation, with the president’s impeachment trial poised to end Tuesday, a poll showed Friday.

According to Gallup Korea’s poll of 1,002 potential South Korean voters conducted in the third week of February, those who identified as supporters of the ruling party amounted to 34 percent, down 5 percentage points from a week prior.

With declining support, the ruling party — whose lawmakers have en masse protested President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment trial procedures — conceded the lead it had held in the previous poll. Those who responded in support of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea rose 2 percentage points to 40 percent. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, putting their numbers just within the margin at opposite extremes.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest update from the ongoing impeachment trial:

Impeached Prime Minister Han Duck-soo told the Constitutional Court that Cabinet ministers were concerned about President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law bid and attempted to dissuade him before he announced it on Dec. 3. 

Han, who was impeached on Dec. 14 over his alleged role in Yoon’s botched martial law bid, made the remarks as he attended what is likely the last hearing of Yoon’s impeachment trial Thursday.

“As I recall, all (Cabinet members) were concerned and tried to dissuade him,” Han said, referring to a hastily arranged meeting of some Cabinet ministers shortly before Yoon’s surprise imposition of martial law. 

When asked about former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun’s testimony that some members were in favor of Yoon’s plan, Han replied, “From what I recall, that was not the case at all.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The fact that there is a large pro-Yoon protest in Gwangju of all places has to be highly disturbing to the Korean left:

A longtime symbol of South Korea’s pro-democracy movement, Geumnam-ro Street in Gwangju became the staging ground for intensifying political divisions on Saturday, with protesters supporting and opposing President Yoon Suk Yeol gathering at the same time.

The two rallies, held separately along a 680-meter course from May 18 Democracy Square — commemorating the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising — to Geumnam-ro, saw the biggest crowd in Gwangju since Yoon’s declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, and, in particular, the largest anti-impeachment rally.

The conservative Christian organization Save Korea organized a rally opposing Yoon’s impeachment along Geumnam-ro, specifically on sections 3 and 4 of the road from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m.

While this was happening, a rally in favor of impeaching Yoon was held on the other side of Geumnam-ro, led by the civic group Gwangju Emergency Action for Immediate Resignation of the Yoon Administration and Social Reform.

To maintain order and prevent physical clashes, police formed barriers between the opposing groups using riot buses.

Local media reported that the police unofficially put the number of people who participated in the anti-Yoon impeachment protest at 30,000, while 10,000 to 20,000 participated in the pro-Yoon impeachment protest.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Moon is correct that if he did not pick Yoon as his prosecutor general he would not have had the name recognition to compete for the Presidency:

Former President Moon Jae-in expressed regret over his decision to appoint President Yoon Suk Yeol as prosecutor general in 2019, a move that ultimately paved the way for Yoon’s rise to political stardom.

In a rare interview published on Monday, Moon, who has been critical of his successor’s governance, admitted that the appointment played a role in the formation of the Yoon administration.

“There are many things I regret throughout the (appointment) process, but ultimately, the fact that our administration led to the creation of the Yoon Suk Yeol government is something we cannot distance ourselves from. Of course, I bear the greatest responsibility for that. I sincerely regret any distress this has caused to the public,” Moon said in an interview with The Hankyoreh, a center-left daily newspaper in Korea.

“Even before the declaration of martial law, the Yoon government was performing poorly. I felt a deep sense of self-reproach for having handed over power to such individuals. And now, with the impeachment motion and the martial law crisis, the extent of this feeling is indescribable,” he said.

This interview marked the former liberal president’s first official media appearance since he handed power to Yoon in May 2022.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the difference between Yoon getting impeached and possibly going to jail is two similar sounding Korean words:

A former military commander involved in President Yoon Suk Yeol’s botched martial law bid confirmed Thursday that the people Yoon ordered to be removed from the National Assembly were lawmakers, not agents, a claim that Yoon again rejected.

Lt. Gen. Kwak Jong-keun, the then chief of the Army Special Warfare Command, made the remark as a witness during the sixth formal hearing of Yoon’s impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court.

Yoon was also in attendance.

“I obviously thought and understood the part about dragging people out from inside as referring to lawmakers because there were no operation agents inside the main (parliamentary) building at the time,” Kwak said, referring to a phone call he received from Yoon on the night martial law was imposed on Dec. 3.

Kwak was confirming testimony he has previously given in parliament, as former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun has disputed the claim, saying Yoon had in fact ordered the removal of agents, not lawmakers.

In Korean, the words for agent and lawmaker are similar in pronunciation.

Yoon once again denied the claim — saying he has never used the term “agent” — and accused Kwak of plotting against him.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.