"All Details Will Be Disclosed During the Hearing"
Kim Haeng, the nominee for Minister of Gender Equality and Family, declared that she would stop the brief press conferences on her way to work, saying that the "fake news has gone too far" regarding various media reports surrounding her.
On the morning of the 19th, as Kim arrived at the personnel hearing preparation office set up in the Ima Building in Jongno-gu, Seoul, she told reporters, "Is it even reasonable for a nominee for Minister of Gender Equality and Family, who should be preparing for the hearing, to have to fight a war against fake news?"
She said, "At first, I said I would become the most 'media-friendly' minister and that if there were questions, I would explain them in detail the next day," adding, "Yet, articles with unconfirmed information are published under the headline 'exclusive'."
She continued, "I will disclose all management details of the social news company, Social News, Social Holdings, Meta Canvas, which I founded, during the hearing," and emphasized, "Until then, I will stop doorstepping. I hope all reports of any suspicions will cease until the hearing."
She then addressed each of the suspicion reports one by one. Regarding the allegation that her sister-in-law, Kim Mo, was a major shareholder of Social News, the operator of WikiTree, Kim said, "I will disclose all accounting reports and the number of employees from 2009 to 2012," adding, "It was a company started with four employees and sales of about 5 million won. Would you buy shares in such a company?" She added, "My sister-in-law is not subject to the blind trust," and said, "(My sister-in-law) said she would take responsibility since her sister-in-law held such an important public office." She also said, "I will notify all stock changes before and after the blind trust."
She also explained the controversy over the use of her spouse's credit card and cash receipts being reported as zero in the supplementary documents submitted to the National Assembly for the personnel hearing request. She said, "Do they publish exclusive articles without even checking the zero credit card article about my husband?" and showed a statement, saying, "I will disclose the usage details of one card from 2018 to the present." She rebutted, "My husband is a free subway rider and only missed income deduction reporting during the year-end tax settlement."
Regarding the suspicion that government advertisements for WikiTree increased during her time as spokesperson in 2013, she explained, "From 2013, SNS (social networking service) news took hold, causing traffic changes to Social News," and said, "I have been disclosing all traffic data of Social News since its founding."
She also denied the allegation that Kim Geon-hee recommended her background as a member of the People Power Party’s central party public official committee in June last year. She claimed that Jeong Jin-seok, the chairman of the public official committee at the time, strongly recommended her as a committee member. She said, "The reason for the recommendation was that to win the election, we needed to bring in the top experts in public opinion polls and election trends," adding, "I also accepted the position because I was confident in analyzing election trends and public opinion polls more than anyone else to win the local elections."
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