Han Dong-hoon: 'Even Gemini's grandfather' can't justify presidential control of investigations

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon sharply criticized the recent controversy over the head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency attending Cabinet meetings Wednesday, asking why South Korea had never allowed investigative and prosecutorial bodies to sit in on such sessions.

In a Facebook post that day, Han wrote that "even if you brought Gemini's grandfather, the president still cannot direct investigations and indictments," adding that President Lee Jae Myung was "turning the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency into a sewage agency and the Public Prosecution Service into an agency for political schemes from the very start."

Earlier, President Lee had shared a response from the generative AI chatbot Gemini regarding the investigative chief's Cabinet attendance, arguing that opposition to allowing the heads of the Public Prosecution Service and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency to attend Cabinet meetings "is an unconstitutional stretch that denies Article 11 of the Government Organization Act."

Han fired back at the president's remarks, telling him to "stop making excuses and get a grip."

The People Power Party also went on the offensive over the president's use of AI. PPP lawmaker Na Kyung-won wrote on her Facebook page that day that it was a "pathetic level for a president to fish for a biased answer with a biased question on Gemini and then post it on X," asking, "Is this how he has been running the country?"

She added: "The president is consulting Gemini instead of the Constitution and the law to make governing decisions. It's beyond belief."

Na continued her criticism by citing her own query to Gemini. She noted that the chatbot told her that "justifying the attendance of the heads of the Public Prosecution Service and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency at Cabinet meetings on the basis of the president's unilateral administrative supervisory authority under the Government Organization Act carries a serious risk of undermining the quasi-judicial nature of investigative and prosecutorial bodies and the political neutrality that are core constitutional values of a democratic society."

Fellow PPP lawmaker Park Soo-young also posted on Facebook that day, saying "the answer I got was different," and attached his own Gemini response. The response Park received stated that "given public sensitivity on the matter, rather than routine full attendance, supplementary wisdom is called for — whether through minimal attendance on a case-by-case basis or flexible arrangements — to head off disputes over political neutrality."

Park said it was "already widely known that Gemini gives answers to suit the questioner's taste when pressed," adding that "posting an answer obtained by pressing the chatbot is not something a president should be doing."