Jang says nominee was 'handpicked to cancel president's trial'; Democratic Party calls claim 'plainly false'
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok on Sunday accused Kim Seung-won, the nominee for justice minister, of having served as a defense lawyer in the Daejang-dong case, drawing an immediate rebuttal from the Democratic Party of Korea, which called the claim "plainly false."
Jang posted on social media that day, saying President Lee Jae Myung had "nominated Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Seung-won — a former Daejang-dong defense lawyer — as justice minister" and describing Kim as a co-chair of the so-called "prosecution dismissal group."
Jang said the nominee had argued that the illegal remittances to North Korea case was "a deliberately engineered investigation aimed at bringing down President Lee Jae Myung" and had led efforts to introduce a special prosecutor act to drop the charges. He added that Kim had also recently introduced a bill to remove breach of trust as a criminal offense — a charge that figures in the president's own trial.
Jang said Kim had, as the Democratic Party's floor whip on the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, "led the push to strip prosecutors of their supplementary investigative powers entirely," and claimed the president had "handpicked a justice minister who will take the bullet for canceling his own trial." He also noted that Kim had a history of directing an English expression evoking profanity at the National Assembly speaker after a bill was not put to a vote, suggesting the nominee would "push ahead without restraint at the president's bidding." Kim drew controversy in 2021 for using such an expression directed at then-Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seok.
Democratic Party floor spokesperson Kim Seong-hoe rebuffed the claim in a written briefing, saying the nominee "has never defended anyone in the Daejang-dong case" and that Jang's assertion on Sunday that Kim was a former Daejang-dong defense lawyer was "plainly false."
Kim Seong-hoe said the nominee's only involvement was "a single visit, at the early stage of the case, related to a lawyer surnamed Nam, at the request of a senior partner at his law firm in 2015," adding that "this was confirmed in media reports at the time in 2021."
He challenged Jang directly, asking "why he keeps repeating baseless claims without even a minimum check of the facts," and said it was "highly irresponsible for the leader of the main opposition party — a former judge — to mislead the public with false incitement without verifying the facts."
Kim Seong-hoe called on Jang to "immediately stop the groundless attacks on the nominee and correct his own statements," saying that "vetting of the nominee must be conducted at the confirmation hearing, based on objective evidence and facts."
psj@heraldcorp.com
