 Moon Jae-in, the presidential candidate of the Democratic United Party, lays flowers at the grave of staff sergeant Kim Gwang-min, who was killed during the Vietnam War, at Seoul National Cemetery, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Ryu Hyo-jin |
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Rep. Moon Jae-in, the presidential candidate of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP), is facing allegations of influence peddling while serving as a senior presidential secretary to the late former President Roh Moo-hyun.
There was a sharp increase of earnings at the Busan-based law firm, where he had worked for 17 years as a partner, after he assumed key posts in the Roh government.
This incited speculation as to whether Moon was behind the sharp difference in the firm’s earnings.
The average annual earning of the firm was 1 billion won before Moon became the senior presidential secretary for civil affairs and then chief presidential secretary; but it nearly tripled during the Roh government. After Moon stepped down following the change in government, the income decreased sharply.
Earlier, Lee Jong-hyuk, a former lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party, claimed that in August 2003 Moon, as a senior presidential secretary, made a phone call to an official of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) in charge of the investigation of the Busan Savings Bank.
The FSS official was quoted as having said that Moon asked him to handle the savings bank case adroitly to relieve depositors’ worries.
Lee alleged that Moon peddled his influence in the probe and in return the law firm won a 590 million won legal case from the savings bank later.
The law firm filed a lawsuit against the lawmaker for defamation, denying the allegation. The court cleared Lee of the charge.
Moon denied the link, saying there was no connection between the law firm’s taking on the legal case and his phone conversation with the official.
The DUP presidential candidate is also under suspicion in a nepotism case. In 2007, his son Joon-yong got a job offer as a researcher from the Employment Information Service (EIS), an affiliated agency of the Ministry of Labor, when Moon was a special advisor on political affairs to the late Roh.
The ruling Saenuri Party alleged that Moon peddled influence to place his son at the state-run agency, raising suspicions regarding the selection process.
According to the ruling party, the EIS’s job opening announcement did not specify qualifications and eligibility for candidates. The EIS also cut the deadline from the initial 15 days to seven and went ahead with selecting Moon’s son although he had no competitors.
State-run firms and government tend to extend the deadlines of job applications when the number of candidates is too small.
The Saenuri Party claimed that Kwon Jae-chul, then senior presidential secretary for labor, was behind the selection of Moon’s son for the EIS. Moon and Kwon are reportedly close.
Meanwhile, the EIS denied the nepotism allegation, saying the selection process was fair and transparent.
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