Kim Keonhee Special Counsel Names Jin Jeon as Suspect...Yoon Sanghyun Accused as Accomplice

Jin Jeon Listed in Yoon Sanghyun's Search and Seizure Warrant
Related to "Nomination Intervention Allegations"

The special prosecutor team led by Min Jungki, which is investigating allegations related to First Lady Kim Keonhee, reportedly named Jin Jeon, former Chief of Presidential Secretariat, as a suspect in a search and seizure warrant for Representative Yoon Sanghyun of the People Power Party. Representative Yoon is said to be under suspicion as an accomplice in the case involving obstruction of business by the former President and his wife.

According to legal sources on July 9, the special prosecutor team secured files and documents from PCs related to nominations for National Assembly members and various elections from more than ten locations the previous day, including Representative Yoon's National Assembly office and residence, the residence of former lawmaker Kim Youngsun, and the residence of former Deputy Prosecutor Kim Sangmin.

Jin Jeon, Former Chief of Presidential Secretariat. Photo by Hyunmin Kim

The special prosecutor team appears to suspect that Jin Jeon, who served as the head of the People Power Party's Nomination Management Committee during the 2022 local elections, may have been involved in the alleged intervention by Kim Keonhee in the nomination process. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office's special investigation team, led by Myung Taegyun and dedicated to investigating these allegations, summoned Jin Jeon as a reference witness last month regarding suspicions that the former President and his wife exerted influence to nominate a specific candidate in the party's primary for Pohang mayor.

The former President and his wife also face allegations that, during the 2022 presidential election, they arranged for former lawmaker Kim Youngsun to be nominated in a parliamentary by-election that year in return for receiving polling services free of charge from so-called "political broker" Myung Taegyun. The special prosecutor team reportedly suspects that Representative Yoon, who chaired the People Power Party's Nomination Management Committee during the by-election, was asked by the former President and his wife to nominate Kim Youngsun and in doing so may have obstructed the committee's fair nomination process. It is said that the search and seizure warrant named Representative Yoon as an accomplice in the alleged obstruction of business by the former President and his wife.