As long as Presidential security remains loyal to President Yoon I don’t see how they are going to be able to arrest him. However, if the Constitutional Court validates Yoon’s impeachment that is when I suspect Presidential security will allow him to be arrested. This is why the authorities should probably wait for the Constitutional Court to render their verdict first before trying to arrest Yoon:
The state anti-corruption agency has asked the police to take over the execution of a warrant to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law bid, both sides said Monday.
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) made the request in an official letter late Sunday with one day left until the warrant’s expiry.
“The CIO sent us an official letter requesting our cooperation without prior consultations,” a police official told Yonhap News Agency. “We are internally carrying out a legal review.”
The CIO halted its execution of the warrant last Friday after an hourslong standoff with presidential security staff at the presidential residence. (……)
Sources said the CIO’s letter was prompting complaints within the police that the agency was trying to shift its responsibilities after passively executing the warrant last Friday.
Yoon’s legal team has rejected the warrant as illegal and invalid, noting the CIO is not technically authorized to investigate charges of insurrection that Yoon faces over his martial law decree.
You can read more at the link.
This hypersonic missile is believed to have the range to target the U.S. territory of Guam:
North Korea fired a suspected hypersonic missile into the East Sea on Monday, the South Korean military said, marking its first provocation this year ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch of a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) at about 12 p.m. from the Pyongyang area and it flew some 1,100 kilometers before splashing into the sea.
While the missile’s flight distance fell shorter than the conventional IRBM range of 3,000 to 5,500 km, it is believed to be similar to North Korea’s IRBMs tipped with hypersonic warheads that were launched in January and April last year, a JCS official said. (….)
The latest launch took place as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Seoul for talks on efforts to deter North Korean threats amid political turmoil in South Korea stemming from President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed martial law bid.
You can read more at the link.
These five personnel had their combat decorations they received for heroism during the Korean War upgraded to Medals of Honor this past week:
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Juanita Mendez gave President Joe Biden a kiss as she sat on stage Friday to accept the nation’s highest military honor for combat valor on behalf of her brother, Pfc. Charles Johnson. It drew a laugh from the crowd gathered in the East Room at the White House.
Biden didn’t seem to mind the moment but moved forward with presenting the Medal of Honor to five Korean War soldiers. “These are genuine to their core heroes. Heroes of different ranks, different positions and even different generations,” he said during the ceremony. “But heroes who all went above and beyond the call of duty, heroes who all deserve our nation’s highest and oldest military recognition.”
You can read more about each of the veteran’s combat heroics during the Korean War at the link.
People supporting impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol rally near his official residence in Seoul on Jan. 3, 2025, to stop investigators from the state anti-corruption agency from executing a warrant to detain Yoon over his failed bid to impose martial law in December. (Yonhap)
The attempt to arrest President Yoon has failed, fortunately this did not turn into a huge brawl:
Investigators from the state anti-corruption agency and police officers leave the premises of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol’s official residence in Seoul on Jan. 3, 2025, after failing to execute a warrant to detain Yoon over his failed bid to impose martial law in December. (Yonhap)
The state anti-corruption agency suspended its attempt to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law bid Friday following an hourslong standoff between investigators and presidential security staff.
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) is expected to make another attempt to detain Yoon over the weekend, while the Presidential Security Service (PSS) threatened to take legal action against “unauthorized trespassing” on the presidential residence.
Here is Yoon’s lawyers’ view of this arrest warrant:
The official said three prosecutors were allowed to walk up to the front of the residence, but not inside, making it difficult to determine whether the president was at home.
The prosecutors did, however, meet with two lawyers for Yoon — Yun Gap-geun and Kim Hong-il — who the official said repeated their position that the president could not comply with a warrant issued “illegally” to an agency unauthorized to investigate insurrection charges.
I still have not read a clear explanation of if what Yoon did was unconstiutional or not. It was clearly stupid and not something I would have advised, but was it illegal? If anyone has any links that lays out clearly the ROK President’s ability to declare martial law please leave them in the comments section.
Besides Presidential security blocking the attempt by investigators to arrest Yoon he also drew a large crowd of demonstrators in support of him:
Rallies by Yoon’s supporters outside the presidential residence, however, have complicated the CIO’s effort, along with the potential for clashes with the PSS.
More than 1,000 pro-Yoon protesters gathered near the residence on Friday morning. Surrounded by some 2,700 police officers deployed to maintain order, they chanted: “Illegal warrant. Completely invalid” and “Arrest the CIO.”
When news broke about the CIO’s withdrawal, the protesters, whose number had grown to 11,000 according to a police estimate, erupted in cheers and shouted “We won” while waving the South Korean and U.S. flags and chanting the president’s name.
You can read more at the link.
When these drones were flown over Pyongyang it was clear this was in response to the North Korean trash balloons that the Yoon administration was struggling to find a response to. If Yoon wanted to provoke a military confrontation with North Korea there would have been better ways of doing so such as sinking a North Korean patrol ship that crossed the NLL this past October:
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff denied allegations that the military scattered anti-communist propaganda leaflets in North Korea to prompt a reaction from Pyongyang, according to a spokesman Thursday. It was “not true” that the South Korean military carried out activities “to induce provocations from the enemy” that were intended to warrant a counter response from Seoul, South Korean army Col. Lee Sung-jun, a Joint Chiefs spokesman, said Thursday at a press conference in Seoul.
South Korean lawmakers from the opposition Democratic Party have accused former President Yoon Suk Yeol of attempting to justify his abrupt martial law declaration last month by directing the military and intelligence agencies to provoke North Korea. North Korea alleged the South sent military drones north of the border to distribute propaganda leaflets in October. One of these drones crashed and was recovered Oct. 13 in Pyongyang, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported six days later.
You can read more at the link.
The first open thread of 2025. I hope everyone is having a great start to the New Year!
