Lee wages public campaign on prosecution reform, warns against 'radical agitators'

President Lee Jae Myung has taken his case directly to the public via SNS, pushing back against hard-liners within the broader ruling camp who oppose his prosecution reform drive.

Since approving the nomination hearing request for Kim Ji-yong, nominee for director of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, on Thursday, Lee has posted seven messages on X, formerly Twitter, related to prosecution reform.

"Prosecution reform is being done for the people, not to build any individual's political legacy," Lee said Monday. "It is even more wrong to dismiss or belittle others' efforts in order to monopolize achievements that everyone worked together to create." He also said that under no circumstances should anyone use prosecution reform as a pretext to pursue personal interests or interfere in personnel decisions and specific investigation and indictment matters. On Sunday, he said radical claims that cannot be backed up and groundless agitation often stem not from concern for the people or the country, but from a desire for self-promotion and to monopolize the fruits of reform. He added that "the agitation of irresponsible extremists — so-called 'irresponsible radicals' — is spreading like a trend."

Lee also said that most advocates of prosecution reform, including the Rebuilding Korea Party, had called for placing the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, handling investigations, and a separate prosecution office, handling indictments, under the Ministry of Justice. He said his administration had gone a step further by splitting investigation and indictment functions between the two agencies while placing them under separate ministries — the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior and Safety, respectively. He added that the government had not dragged its feet on prosecution reform but had, in line with a ruling party-government agreement, achieved a complete separation of investigation and indictment functions more swiftly and thoroughly than any previous administration.

Cheong Wa Dae also weighed in. After the Rebuilding Korea Party pushed back against Lee's remarks over the key sticking points of supplementary investigation powers and the jurisdiction of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, the presidential office fired back by citing past statements by Cho Kuk, director of the Rebuilding Korea Party's innovation policy institute.

In an official notice issued Monday night under the name of the presidential spokesperson's office, Cheong Wa Dae said Cho had appeared on a YouTube channel on Aug. 29 last year and stated his own position that supplementary investigations should be permitted, albeit with conditions attached.

On the question of which ministry the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency should fall under, Cheong Wa Dae noted that the party had previously argued for placing it under the Ministry of Justice but later changed its official position to favor the Ministry of Interior and Safety.

"The Rebuilding Korea Party has itself acknowledged that the substantive content of its prosecution reform proposals has shifted in response to circumstances and changing conditions," Cheong Wa Dae said. "The detailed design of prosecution reform has been adjusted as discussions have progressed and situations have evolved."

Cheong Wa Dae said Lee's posts on X conveyed that the overarching purpose and direction of prosecution reform was to bring about an irreversible transformation of the prosecution as an institution — that this had been achieved, and that this goal had not changed since it was put forward as a campaign pledge. The office urged the party to join in completing the reform that has already irreversibly advanced, rather than fixating on minor differences.