Im Gwang-hyeon tapped as presidential chief of staff; ruling party praises pick, opposition calls it 'Daejang-dong family' move

The appointment of National Tax Service Commissioner Im Gwang-hyeon as the second chief of staff under President Lee Jae Myung drew sharply divided reactions from the political establishment on Wednesday.

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea expressed confidence in the pick, saying it believed Im would "provide solid support to the president while delivering tangible improvements in people's livelihoods that citizens can feel in their daily lives."

Chief Spokesperson Park Seong-jun said Im, who begins his tenure Thursday, was "the right person to accelerate policy achievements through cooperation among the party, government and Cheong Wa Dae, having served as a 22nd National Assembly member and gained broad experience in both the legislature and the executive branch." Park also credited Im with "establishing tax justice by achieving unprecedented results on long-unresolved large-scale tax delinquency cases" during his tenure as the administration's inaugural NTS commissioner.

Supreme Council member Jeon Yong-gi also welcomed the appointment on Facebook, writing that "a person who works with numbers, not words, is standing by the president's side," and called it "the big picture of the Lee Jae Myung administration."

Park Ji-won, a five-term veteran lawmaker who served as presidential chief of staff under President Kim Dae-jung, offered measured praise on Facebook, calling the appointment "an unexpected, blindsiding move, but one that will undoubtedly be highly regarded." He cautioned that the three chiefs — the chief of staff, the policy chief and the national security adviser — had been overshadowing the prime minister, the Cabinet and even senior secretaries. "Please bear in mind the saying that a secretary has no mouth of their own," he wrote.

Park added that the new chief of staff should "step back, coordinate and organize the Cabinet's policies and work so that the president can make informed decisions," and that "occasionally saying, 'Your Excellency, that may not be the right course,' is the path to becoming a truly great chief of staff — for the people and for the president."

The main opposition People Power Party sharpened its criticism after Im's surprise appointment, saying it amounted to a declaration of intent to "drop an even heavier tax bomb on the people."

PPP leader Jang Dong-hyeok said on Facebook that Im had "until yesterday been shielding Lee Jae Myung's so-called 'Democratic Party mortgage' at the national audit," adding that Im "was more zealous than anyone in carrying out tax investigations at the president's direction, led the charge on real estate tax hikes including the abolition of the special housing supply scheme, and has been pushing ahead with virtual asset taxation that young people oppose."

Jang also said Im's brother-in-law, attorney Lee Seung-yeop, "is Lee Jae Myung's defense lawyer," having handled the president's legal defense in the Daejang-dong case, the Public Official Election Act case, the perjury-inducement case and the illegal inter-Korean remittance case. He noted that a bid to appoint Lee as a Constitutional Court justice had been scrapped after a public backlash.

PPP Floor Leader Jeong Jeom-sik held a press conference at the National Assembly, saying he "could not have imagined" the NTS commissioner being promoted to chief of staff "at such a grave moment," and called the appointment proof that "President Lee has absolutely no awareness of the governance crisis."

Jeong added that Im had "spent virtually his entire career in the tax sector, aside from one year as a lawmaker," and questioned whether he had "the capacity to untangle the total governance mess — tangled like a ball of thread — across real estate, stocks, farmland, North Korea and the Korea-US relationship."

Jeong said he could not shake the suspicion that the appointment amounted to installing "a figurehead for the Seongnam-Gyeonggi Province line and for Kim Hyun-ji, the most powerful figure at Cheong Wa Dae, as first deputy chief of staff." He said he was "deeply concerned" that even Kang Hoon-sik, who had reportedly played a red-team role inside Cheong Wa Dae, had been pushed aside by Kim.

On Im's brother-in-law, Jeong said there had been questions "since Im's time as NTS commissioner about whether the appointments were a form of payback" to the attorney.

Lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo also weighed in on Facebook, saying the so-called "Daejang-dong family" centered on President Lee had "taken over Cheong Wa Dae after already capturing the judiciary, diplomacy and tax administration," and called the appointment "completely wrong."

Ahn said Im's wife, Lee Gyeong-eun, serves as consul general in Houston, and that her brother is attorney Lee Seung-yeop — the president's lawyer in the Daejang-dong and inter-Korean remittance cases who had also been considered for a Constitutional Court seat. "His sister, who is Im's wife, is a non-diplomat from the Ministry of Health and Welfare background, yet was tapped as consul general in Houston," Ahn said. "This is the definitive example of rewarding the Daejang-dong family."