People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok said Thursday that if allegations President Lee Jae Myung played golf while a naval soldier lay dying are true, they would constitute clear grounds for impeachment.
Speaking at a PPP supreme council meeting at the National Assembly, Jang said allegations have emerged that "the president was swinging a golf club while our Navy soldier was growing cold in death in the East Sea."
The presidential office has declined to address the matter, citing a non-public schedule. Jang said that if the silence stems from the schedule being private — making it impossible to disclose with whom, when, or where he played — "then all he needs to do is confirm that he played golf." He added that if the president was engaged in a different non-public activity, "he can simply say he did not play golf."
"The bigger problem is that there has been no word at all on whether the president actually held a meeting as part of his official schedule at that time," Jang said. "I ask the people: doesn't this amount to confirmation that he played golf?"
Jang also drew a comparison to President Lee's conduct during the Cpl. Chae incident, when Lee was serving as Democratic Party leader. "If it is true that he played golf, isn't it right that the president be impeached?" he said.
He went on to criticize what he described as a pattern of indifference during national tragedies. He said Lee held a raw fish party during the Seosomun disaster, filmed a mukbang episode for "Please Take Care of My Refrigerator" during the Gukjeong Resources fire, and filmed a tteokbokki mukbang during the Icheon logistics center fire while serving as Gyeonggi Province governor. "A president who concerns himself with human rights in Damascus — why does he treat the lives of our soldiers and citizens so lightly?" Jang said.
Jang also addressed the Democratic Party of Korea's unilateral passage Wednesday of a bill to extend the second special prosecutor mandate through the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee. He called it "neither surprising nor strange," but said it was remarkable that a search and seizure of former Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Won Hee-ryong was carried out on the very same day.
"After more than a year of investigation, including a travel ban, without being able to establish charges, they conducted a belated search timed to the end of the investigation," Jang said. He added that it was the Democratic Party that had refused Won's proposal to form a bipartisan route-verification committee to examine the facts, "inflating only political allegations" in the process.
"The Democratic Party keeps extending a special prosecutor that wastes taxpayer money and produces no results, while continuing to reject the people's special prosecutor that many citizens are demanding to restore their political rights," Jang said. He called on the Democratic Party to "immediately accept the opposition-led people's special prosecutor for the restoration of political rights."
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