Tag: politics

It only makes sense that with a left wing government in power these former convicted spies would seek to have their records purged:

Seven leaders of a now-disbanded left wing party filed for a retrial of a North Korea-affiliated treason case that rattled the nation six years ago, Wednesday, claiming the ruling was rigged by misleading evidence and corrupt ties between the judiciary and the former administration.

Lawyers for former lawmaker Lee Seok-ki and six other former members of the United Progressive Party (UPP) submitted the application for the retrial to the Seoul Central District Court.

The seven were arrested in 2013 on charges of plotting a pro-North Korean rebellion, and were sentenced to jail terms of two to nine years in August 2014 for “inciting” an armed rebellion during two gatherings with dozens of followers in May. Later that year, the Constitutional Court ruled to disband the UPP, saying the small leftist party with five parliamentary seats was a risk to national security due to its “violent” communist motives.

Korea Times via a reader tip

You can read much more at the link.

I always suspected that the claims the NIS made of the spy ring plotting to overthrow the government were exaggerated.  However, this does not explain why Lee Seok-ki was requesting classified documents and then leaking them in an effort to harm the US-ROK alliance.  Why was Lee also trying to get his hands on US-ROK war plans?  As I said before Lee and the UPP are just a political extension of the North Korean stooges in the Korean left that inhabit organization such as the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the Korea Teacher’s Union.

These organizations have long been pro-North Korean and anti-US.  That is why I said this whole UPP spy scandal is just a continuation of the Ilshimhoe Spy Scandal and not some new organization trying to overthrow the government.  These groups coordinate with North Korea in order to cause political and social unrest within South Korea.  That is why I said at the time that the UPP should not be banned in South Korea.  By having the UPP all the pro-North Korean politicians all in one party and you know who they are. 

If politicians in the U.S. want to know what real election meddling looks like they should read this article from ROK Drop favorite Dr. Tara O about the alleged meddling going on in South Korean elections by the Blue House:

A former Blue House inspector Baek Jae-young (백재영) was found dead on December 1, 2019 just hours prior to the time he was due to appear at the prosecutor’s office to answer questions.  He was a key witness in the ongoing investigation about the alleged Blue House manipulation of the election in Ulsan Metropolitan City in 2018.

Baek Jae-young, a prosecutor, was seconded to the Blue House, and worked under Baek Won-woo (백원우) (the same last name, but not related) during the time when the Blue House is suspected of ordering an investigation against the Ulsan mayor Kim Gi-Hyeon (김기현), Liberty Korea Party, during Kim’s mayoral election campaign in 2018.  The grounds for this investigation appear questionable, and while Kim Gi-Hyeon was ultimately found innocent, the investigation appears to have prejudiced voters against Kim, who was ahead in the polls prior to the investigation, and played a role in his defeat.  Other conservative mayoral candidates in the province faced similar criminal investigations.

East Asia Research Center

You can read more at the link, but this alleged election interference in Ulsan is just the latest example of how the Korean left interferes in election. ROK Heads may remember the Druking Scandal to rig online opinion for Moon in the last ROK Presidential election. President Moon’s close friend was sentenced to jail for two years and then quickly let out.

This is on top of the irregularities involving the tablet computer that led to the impeachment of former ROK President Park Geun-hye that caused the last presidential election to occur.

President Moon has to get someone appointed as the Justice Minister to slow down all the corruption investigations into the Blue House:

Choo Mi-ae, a five-term ruling party lawmaker, has been nominated for the position of justice minister, Cheong Wa Dae announced Thursday amid keen attention to her role in the South Korean government’s push for prosecution reform.

President Moon Jae-in picked Choo to fill the post that has been vacant for several weeks since Cho Kuk stepped down in the face of state prosecutors’ probe into alleged irregularities involving his family. (……..)

For Moon, the choice of Choo is viewed as a card to counter the prosecution’s thinly veiled pressure on Cheong Wa Dae with intensive probes into high-profile corruption suspicions, involving longtime confidants to the president, under the leadership of Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is what the Joong Ang Ilbo is speculating she will do once in charge of the Justice Ministry:

Speculation is running high that Choo will shake up the prosecution as soon as she becomes minister. As of now, the prosecution is carrying out at least three investigations that involve allies of President Moon. Probes are ongoing into an allegation that the Moon Blue House carried out a political operation to influence the 2018 local election; the suspicious suspension of a Blue House probe into Moon’s associate Yoo Jae-soo; and the continuing investigation of corruption allegations involving Cho Kuk and his family. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but she is essentially expected to help cover up the corruption allegations surrounding the Blue House.

The fact that Korean conservatives were able to mobilize so many people to protest against ROK Justice Minister Cho Kuk forced President Moon to have him resign:

 In an unexpected move, Justice Minister Cho Kuk offered to resign Monday amid an ongoing probe into corruption allegations involving his family.

“I judged I should not add a burden to the president and the government regarding my family affairs. I think the time has come for me to step down for the successful completion of prosecution reform,” he said in a statement.

“I was mere ‘kindling’ for reforming the prosecution. My role as ‘kindling’ has come to an end.”

President Moon Jae-in formally accepted Cho’s resignation offer, Cheong Wa Dae said. The president signed a related document at 5:38 p.m., Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Ko Min-jung, said.

Yonhap

The fact that he resigned I think also may mean there must be some good evidence against him to substantiate the corruption charges. It will be interesting to see if prosecutors continue to go after Cho Kuk and his family on the corruption charges now that he has resigned.

1/The important part is not in the headlines. Moon held a cabinet meeting at KIST, and Cho Kuk was there. Moon & Cho were pressuring KIST to say Cho Kuk's daughter did an internship there, when she didn't. Cho's daughter claimed she was an intern there…https://t.co/3HLgzX52J4

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) September 11, 2019

To be fair President Moon’s job approval rating is still pretty high considering all the scandals and poor economy:

Public sentiment toward President Moon Jae-in is becoming noticeably negative in light of various setbacks at home and abroad, with negative assessments of his job performance exceeding 50 percent, for the first time since he took office in May 2017, in a weekly Realmeter survey.

The survey published Monday showed that 50.4 percent of respondents thought Moon was doing a bad job in the third week of August, marking a 4.1 percent increase from the previous week. The pollster said the biggest reason for this was the escalating political row over one of his most trusted aides, Cho Kuk. The rival parties agreed to hold a two-day confirmation hearing from Sept. 2 for the justice minister nominee who is at the center of a widening scandal over allegations of corruption and unethical behavior involving himself and his family members.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Cho Kuk was a mber of Sanomaeng (Socialist Workers League of Korea). Its goal was to overthrow #SouthKorean system for workers' socialist revolution by armed uprising. Cho said he's not ashamed of it. Moon designated Cho to be the Justice Minister.https://t.co/uA6GW88ejv

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) August 22, 2019

It is pretty clear that the Blue House is going to take the Kang Kyung-hwa approach to getting President Moon’s Justice Minister nominee approved:

Cho Kuk promised Friday to donate all his family’s scandal-plagued wealth to society in an attempt to keep his justice minister nomination from being derailed.

Cho, however, remained silent about suspected academic fraud and other scandals surrounding his daughter, which have become the focus of public disquiet over his controversial nomination. 

“My family and I have been loved by society, but I failed to have the humility to look back on myself,” Cho said in a press conference broadcast live Friday afternoon. He promised to quickly donate his family’s investments in a private equity fund and its ownership of a private school foundation to society at large. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the current ROK Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa had similar ethical issues as Cho and made face saving public statements like Cho is now making to get approved.

However, Cho’s ethical lapses are even worse than Kang’s:

He made clear, however, that he wouldn’t abandon his nomination to head the Ministry of Justice. “Please trust my sincerity and watch me till the end,” he said. “I will work with a humble attitude.” 

Despite media reporting on suspicious wealth management, Cho insisted the family never used illegal means. While promising to donate the controversial family money and school foundation, Cho gave no explanation about any specific allegation.  

After reading the brief statement about his family’s wealth, Cho ended the press conference without taking any questions. Conspicuously missing in his statement was any mention about the most volatile elements of the scandal surrounding his family, which involve his daughter. 

Cho’s 28-year-old daughter, who currently attends Pusan National University’s Graduate School of Medicine, is suspected of having been wrongly cited as the first author of an English-language paper published in the Korean Journal of Pathology in 2008 and using that accomplishment to gain admission to Korea University in 2010. 

The professor in charge of the controversial paper admitted Thursday that he had given special treatment to Cho’s daughter. 

“She was responsible for experiments and editing of the paper,” Chang Young-pyo, a professor in the Department of Medical Science at Dankook University, told the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday. “I was responsible for data analysis and writing the first draft of the paper. I cannot deny that a favor was given to her by crediting her as the first author.” 

You can read more at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that one of the reasons former ROK President Park Geun-hye was impeached was because the daughter of her friend Choi Soon-sil, received special treatment to get admitted to college as well.

That is what Oh Young-jin writing for the Korea Times says people in South Korea are speculating about:

A look at the participants in the National Security Office meeting presided over by Chung Eui-yong, Moon’s top security aide, does not reveal these elements in play before the GSOMIA decision. But the movers and shakers that led the move were hidden in plain sight, as it was more the action of working-level presidential aides and others outside Cheong Wa Dae that have inherited Roh’s zeitgeist. 

Some argue openly ― and more wonder ― whether the GSOMIA decision is aimed at diverting public attention from the scandal involving the justice minister-to-be regarding a mushrooming body of allegations of unethical, if not illegal, activities involving his daughter, himself and other family members. The revelations are shocking, dumb-founding and despicable to the point that his nomination deserves an immediate withdrawal. 

But speculation appears quite plausible that Moon ditched the military pact to save his apostle, whom he depends on solely to achieve one of his key presidential agenda items ― reforming the prosecutors, an influential group notorious for colluding with power at a given time and thereby hindering the development of the nation’s democracy. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Justice Minister Nominee Cho Kuk is one of President Moon’s closest friends that he wants put in charge of the powerful Justice Ministry. It is ironic that President Moon came to power due to candlelight protests against the supposed corruption of the Park Geun-hye administration and Moon has done the same thing of appointing people with shady backgrounds to important positions in the government. The negative media is worth it because he trusts these people to forcibly advance his agenda.

Giving the media another bright shiny object to follow could have definitely been part of the timing of the GSOMIA calculus, but I feel they were going to withdraw regardless for a variety of reasons.