Choo Kyung-ho: "Direct Investigation of Moon Unavoidable... Cannot Halt Legitimate Investigation"

"Ruling party calls it clearing deep-rooted evils, opposition calls it political revenge... Double standards"
"If innocent, they would be proven not guilty, so what is the Democratic Party worried about?"

Choo Kyung-ho, the floor leader of the People Power Party, stated that with former President Moon Jae-in being named as a suspect on charges including bribery in the search warrant for his daughter Dahye's property seizure, "a direct investigation into former President Moon is also expected to be inevitable."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

At the Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly on the 2nd, Floor Leader Choo said, "The Democratic Party of Korea is claiming this is political retaliation," and emphasized, "It is a tragedy in our modern history that presidents are repeatedly investigated after leaving office, but legitimate investigations conducted according to laws and regulations cannot be stopped."

Floor Leader Choo criticized the Democratic Party for showing hypocritical behavior by referring to past remarks by former President Moon and Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung. He said, "'Eradicating deep-rooted evils is not political retaliation, and you cannot block investigations when actual corruption emerges' and 'If eradicating deep-rooted evils and injustice is political retaliation, then such political retaliation can be done all the time' are statements made by former President Moon and Lee in 2017," adding, "During the early Moon administration, two former presidents were imprisoned and conservative figures were detained, and the Democratic Party enthusiastically called it eradicating deep-rooted evils. There will not be many citizens who sympathize with the Democratic Party's hypocrisy of calling it eradicating deep-rooted evils when in power and political retaliation when in opposition."

Furthermore, Floor Leader Choo added, "The retaliatory impeachment against Prosecutor Lee Jeong-seop, who investigated Lee Jae-myung, was dismissed by the Constitutional Court," and said, "If there is no guilt and innocence, it will naturally be proven in the investigation and trial process, so I do not understand what the Democratic Party is worried about."

The prosecution is investigating whether there was a quid pro quo between Seo Mo's employment as a senior executive at Thai Vietjet in July 2018 and former National Assembly member Lee Sang-jik's appointment as chairman of the Small and Medium Business Corporation in March of the same year. Thai Vietjet is a Thai low-cost carrier (LCC) reportedly owned by former lawmaker Lee Sang-jik, the founder of Eastar Jet.