"Phone Records Appearing at a Critical Time... Why Are They Not Being Disclosed?"
Cheon Ha-ram, floor leader of the Reform New Party, raised suspicions regarding the presumed internal phone number within the Presidential Office linked to the death of Chae Sang-byeong, asking, "Isn't this the president's right-hand number or a number used by First Lady Kim Geon-hee?" He added, "Isn't that why they are so desperately refusing to disclose it?"
On the 2nd, during CBS Radio's 'Kim Hyun-jung's News Show,' Floor Leader Cheon said, "Chief Presidential Secretary Jeong Jin-seok stated that 'the Presidential Office phone numbers were not disclosed even in the previous administration,' but many numbers appear just by searching on Google," and questioned, "Why is it that only 02-800-7070 cannot be disclosed?" He continued, "Given that the president's personal phone use has been revealed, if this is a line that receives proper presidential orders, is there really a need to hide it to this extent?"
During the previous day's National Assembly Steering Committee's inquiry into current issues at the Presidential Office, the opposition questioned Chief Secretary Jeong and other Presidential Office aides about the so-called 'presidential rage theory.' This was to verify the claim that on July 31 last year, the presumed Presidential Office landline '02-800-7070' called then Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-seop, and immediately after the call, the minister ordered the suspension of transferring the Marine Corps incident. However, Chief Secretary Jeong responded that it was "difficult to confirm" regarding that number and added, "Due to the nature of the work, the Presidential Office numbers were also difficult to disclose during the Moon Jae-in administration."
In response, Floor Leader Cheon argued, "The 7070 phone records appear at a critical time," and claimed, "Is this really routine work, or is there suspicion that some atypical special instructions were given?" He said, "Previously, the president was said to be on vacation and did not meet the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives during their visit to Korea, so it is hard to believe that he was making calls related to routine work even during his vacation."
He further asserted that the Presidential Office may have intervened in the transfer of the Chae Sang-byeong case. Floor Leader Cheon stated, "The decision to retrieve a case that had already been approved and transferred to another agency cannot be made easily without any external factors," and added, "It is a highly reasonable inference that the president and the Presidential Office were involved in that decision-making."
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