PPP blasts police summons of lawmaker on first day of national audit as 'political retaliation'

The People Power Party on Tuesday sharply criticized police for summoning PPP lawmaker Kim Jae-seop as a suspect on the opening day of the national audit, calling it a "petty retaliatory investigation by political police."

PPP floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik convened a national audit strategy meeting at the National Assembly that morning and said, "On the very first day of the national audit, President Lee Jae Myung and the police are reportedly summoning Rep. Kim Jae-seop for questioning as a suspect. Can this really be a coincidence?"

Jeong characterized the move as a "mudslinging probe" designed to divert public attention. "This is a petty retaliatory investigation by political police over the Seoul mayoral election defeat," he said, "and a mudslinging probe to distract the public from the national audit, which is set to expose the failures of the Lee Jae Myung administration."

Jeong also listed the targets of police investigations since the dissolution of the prosecution service, vowing a strong response to what he called politically motivated probes. "After the prosecution was dismantled for the first time in 78 years, the police's first summons target was a former aide who had exposed the true face of pro-Lee lawmaker Kim Byung-kee, and the second was an opposition Assembly member," he said. "Both cases are thoroughly retaliatory investigations carried out for the sake of the regime."

He added that the actions amounted to "tribute paid by political police to the Lee Jae Myung government, which dismantled the prosecution and handed all power to the police," and said police were "thoroughly burying" an investigation into allegations that candidate Jeong Won-o had distributed manipulated polling data.

PPP Secretary-General Jeong Hee-yong said the summons was "something that defies common sense from the very first day" of the national audit. He said police were reported to be summoning Rep. Kim Jae-seop — who had raised allegations about overseas trips taken by former Seongdong-gu District Mayor Jeong Won-o — for questioning as a suspect.

"At a time when the criminal justice system has been shaken since the launch of the Central Investigation Agency and public concern over investigative gaps is growing, is it really urgent to summon an opposition lawmaker for questioning on the first day of the national audit?" he asked.

Jeong said summoning an opposition lawmaker as a suspect on the opening day of the audit "can only be interpreted as an attempt to gag the opposition and suppress national audit activities," adding that "under the lawless Lee Jae Myung administration, the police are inviting suspicion of conducting politically motivated investigations upon themselves."

Criticism also extended to the film "Assassin(s)," which has been generating controversy in political and film circles. PPP policy committee chairwoman Lim Yi-ja referenced the military's announcement Monday of its investigation findings into the DMZ landmine disaster and said, "Will the blood-stained truth be fully remembered 10 or 20 years from now?" She warned that "someone will make a film or write a novel spreading the shameless conspiracy theory that 'it was not North Korea's doing' or 'it could have been staged by the South Korean military,' cloaking it in the guise of freedom of expression."

She stressed that "using film — a powerful medium — as a weapon to instill fabricated history in the younger generation can no longer be left unchecked under the banner of freedom of expression."