Tag: scandal

President Park’s association with Choi Soon-sil has long been known and I think a lot of people outside her administration suspected Choi was up to no good.  However, I don’t think this scandal would have blown up the way it has if it wasn’t for the tablet computer found in Choi’s old office by JTBC News.  In my opinion that tablet computer that confirmed what a lot people already believed is really what caused this scandal, not some gigantic left wing conspiracy:

President Park Geun-hye called the massive corruption scandal involving her and her confidant Choi Soon-sil a “huge mountain heaped up with lies” in an interview Wednesday.

It was her first interview with the media since she was impeached over the influence-peddling scandal Dec. 9. To defend herself, the President opted for a podcast program, “Jeong Kyu-jae TV” operated by the chief editor of the Korea Economic Daily, a conservative website, instead of major newspapers or broadcasters.

In the one-hour interview, Park said she felt that the scandal had been plotted for a long time. “It seems the ongoing things are not accidental,” she said. But when asked whether she thought specific figures might have plotted it, she declined to comment.

She also denied all allegations and rumors surrounding her, such as she shared an economic interest with Choi, that she frequently used propofol, and that she had an affair with her former aide Chung Yoon-hoi, Choi’s ex-husband.

“The series of nonsense show how misunderstanding, fiction and lies are piled up,” she said. “Such huge lies show how weak the grounds for my impeachment were.”

Park said Choi was a longtime friend who helped her, but she came to know many new things about her as the scandal emerged, implying she did not know _ and was not involved in _ Choi’s alleged corruption.  [Korea Times via a reader tip]

You can read more at the link.

Just like in the United States, defense companies often collude with military officers to win contracts and sometimes not in an ethical manner.  What I found most interesting about this article is that the ROK developed liquid body armor that was bomb resistant which I have never heard of before:

Lobbying by a defense company resulted in it being granted general monopoly rights by the Ministry of National Defense on a body armor project worth up to 270 billion won (US$231 million) – even after the ministry had developed its own state-of-the-art body armor at a cost of 2.8 billion won (US$2.4 million).Samyang Chemical, parent group of Samyang Chemtec – which came under fire last year for its production of penetrable body armor – hired 29 reserve soldiers over six years to work as lobbyists for affiliates. Seven were found to be retired generals employed under false pretenses in defiance of ethics regulations against the employment of former senior officials.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read much more about this scandal at the link and the long and sometimes unethical ties to the military Samyang Chemical has.

When the Lee Jung-hee Scandal broke I thought it seemed strange and sure enough it was all as expected a hoax.  This just shows how these campaigns passed around on social media I have little faith in because they are mostly not true and this scandal is just another example:

As we know now, this was all a hoax. The monstrous former husband, who was supposedly blocking the police investigation because he was so well-connected with powerful people, was no more than an old pizza delivery man living in a crappy studio apartment. Lee led to the journalists to a rural village, claiming that her perpetrators lived there–not just one or two of the perpetrators, but according to Lee, the whole village was a sex colony that raped her and her sons. (But why would these allegedly rich and powerful men who assaulted her and her sons live in a crappy rural village?) The police did investigate the former husband when Lee initially claimed sexual assault to the police. After four months of investigation, the police did not find any nefarious orgy picture or video, nor did they find any sign of drug use from the former husband.

The real story was simpler and made much more sense. Lee and the former husband were indeed married, and were in the process of divorce. The former husband did beat Lee and the children, which resulted in a favorable divorce for Lee. It was when the husband appealed the decision by the divorce court that Lee began claiming sexual assault. Her story fell apart as soon as the more serious Korean media began their investigation. Earlier this month, Lee was arrested on the charges of malicious litigation and child abuse; Lee’s children were separated from their mother and were placed in protective services.  [Ask A Korean]

You can read more of Ask A Korean’s take on this issue at the link which I agree with.

The Park administration document scandal has gotten even more interesting with the revelation that the document in question was a forgery:

A presidential document claiming a former aide to President Park Geun-hye tried to exert undue influence on state affairs was fabricated by a senior police officer, prosecutors said Monday.

The document centers around allegations that Jeong Yun-hoe, who was President Park’s adviser before she was elected, pulled strings to try and replace the president’s current chief of staff, Kim Ki-choon.

Announcing the interim outcome of their probe, investigators at the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office said that they have concluded that Supt. Park Kwan-cheon authored and leaked the document.

The document was then handed over to the president’s younger brother, Ji-man, who is also the chairman of EG Group, an electronic materials producer, under the orders of former presidential secretary Cho Eung-cheon.

Cho was indicted on charges of leaking confidential information, and violating the Presidential Records Management Act, prosecutors said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but considering how this document was intended to take out Jeong Yun-hoe it is pretty clear that he must have been still providing advice to the President which others around Park must not have liked.