Kim Geun-sik: "People Power Party should resolve the past from a future-oriented perspective... Hong Joon-pyo 'Mind your own business'"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporters Lee Ji-eun and Lim Chun-han] Regarding the confirmation of a 17-year prison sentence for former President Lee Myung-bak on the 29th, Kim Geun-sik, a professor at Gyeongnam National University and vice chairman of the People Power Party's Media Special Committee, said to former Liberty Korea Party leader Hong Joon-pyo, who criticized it as the "worst political judgment," "The People Power Party will deal with the past from a future-oriented perspective, so please continue to protest the ruling from outside."

Professor Kim said this to former leader Hong through Facebook on the same day, stating, "Therefore, former leader Hong, you should not join our People Power Party."

He added, "If you reject and criticize the judiciary's ruling just because you don't like it, how are you different from the Democratic Party? It becomes the same nonsense as the hardcore Moon Jae-in supporters (Ddaekkaemun) who criticize the Supreme Court ruling on former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook," and said, "The logic that President Moon is not free from this does not serve as evidence to refute former President Lee's innocence."

Professor Kim said, "If President Moon is guilty later, he should be punished," and added, "Rejecting the guilty verdict of former President Lee as wrong is the same as claiming the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye was a fraud, which is a path of self-destruction for the opposition party. As long as the Taegeukgi faction, which claims the impeachment is invalid, remains central, regime change by the opposition is impossible."

He pointed out, "As long as you cannot escape the swamp of fraudulent impeachment and cannot cleanly break away from the mistakes of former conservative presidents, there is no hope for regime change for the opposition," and sarcastically said, "Just shout 'Impeachment invalid' and 'MB innocent' outside, and now that it's someone else's party, mind your own business."

He continued, "It is a great relief that former Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Moon-soo, former lawmaker Cha Myung-jin, and Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon are separated from our party, so if former leader Hong has something to do, he should work with them," and added, "The People Power Party, along with the MB ruling and the final ruling on former President Park, intends to apologize for the mistakes of former presidents and deal with the past from a future-oriented perspective."

Former leader Hong criticized the ruling on Facebook that day, saying, "The DAS company is a family company, but former President Lee's brother claimed it was his company, and the president also said it was his brother's company," and added, "The ruling concluded that the company belonged to Lee Myung-bak based solely on the presumed testimony of a driver who knew nothing, and based on this, ruled that company funds were embezzled."

Hong revealed, "When I visited Washington in October 2017 regarding the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons, I had a meal with lawyer Kim Seok-hwan, who handled the DAS lawsuit for former President Lee, and I asked if the dollars received from Samsung were the payment for the DAS lawsuit."

He continued, "Lawyer Kim said that since 2007, he had been advising Samsung on lawsuits at his law firm, handling Samsung's patent disputes in the U.S. and anti-dumping tariff issues, and the legal fees he received were for that, not for the DAS lawsuit," and added, "He said the DAS lawsuit was a pro bono case, done with the expectation that providing free legal defense for a Korean president's case would benefit his law firm, and questioned how legal fees could be 7 billion won for a 14 billion won lawsuit."

Hong said, "The third-party bribery charges against former President Park are the same. If the Mir Foundation and K-Sports Foundation, which allegedly received cooperation from the business community to help Choi Soon-sil, are judged as bribes, then which president in history would not be caught for bribery?" and questioned, "Is President Moon free from this? Why is there no confiscation in the hundreds of billions bribery case?"

Hong said, "Watching the worst political judgment in history, a code judicial ruling, it is a farce to talk about someone who made such groundless charges as a presidential candidate for the opposition or to apologize in sympathy with the Moon administration," and added, "The opposition leadership is also not normal. Why is the world really turning like this?"