How the Choi Soon-sil scandal unfolded

Choi, Ko started to grow apart after fighting over dog

By Jung Min-ho

A quarrel over a dog made Ko Young-tae speak out on the influence-peddling scandal, which has triggered an impeachment move against President Park Geun-hye.

At the televised National Assembly hearings, Wednesday, one of the key men in the scandal involving the President and her confidant Choi Soon-sil said he started collecting evidence to expose the wrongdoing in late 2014, after he argued with Choi over a puppy belonging to her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra.

Ko was head of The Blue K, a paper company set up by Choi. He has been rumored to be Choi’s “toy boy” and a worker at a host bar.

“Choi asked me to take care of the puppy. One day, I went out to play golf, and she was angry that I left the puppy unattended at home. So we ended up having an argument,” Ko said.

With thoughts of revenge, Ko took all the evidence he had collected ― including CCTV footage of Choi treating presidential aides as her own servants ― to local broadcaster TV Chosun a few months later. The media outlet did not report the story immediately.

The relationship between Ko and Choi began soon after Park became President.

“When I was running a bag manufacturing company called Villomillo, my friend asked me to bring some new items (to a designated place), so I did. That’s when I saw Choi for the first time,” Ko said.

At Choi’s request, Ko supplied about 30 to 40 bags and 100 clothing items for Park, which Lee Young-sun, then a Cheong Wa Dae staff member, delivered to the President.

The relationship between Ko and Choi seemed to have been “very close” at that time, though Ko denied any allegations they were romantically attached.

However, they started to grow apart in June 2014 after Ko introduced her to Cha Eun-taek, a famous commercial director, in response to her request to find an expert in advertising.

Cha and Choi rapidly became close. When Choi asked Cha to recommend some people for high-ranking government posts that year, Cha suggested his acquaintances ― Kim Jong-deok for culture minister, Kim Sang-ryul for senior presidential secretary for education and culture, and Song Sung-gak for CEO of the Korea Creative Content Agency ― and they were all appointed by the end of 2014.

That’s when Cha realized the power Choi had was real, he said in his own National Assembly hearing Wednesday. “I believed she was very close to the President. She was capable of doing things I thought no one could,” he said.

However, what was once a friendly three-way relationship started to break down after Ko and Choi fought over the puppy. Ko started to feel like he was being treated unfairly. “She treated me like a slave, swearing at me many times,” he said.

So Ko collected evidence for what is now known as the Choi-gate scandal. TV Chosun told him later to “wait until the right time” to break the story. Its journalists later discovered the Mir and K-Sports foundations earlier this year and other media outlets found out Choi was behind the foundations and pulled the strings behind President Park to benefit herself in many ways.

When asked if he ever feared opposing the person who could sway the President, Ko, a former fencer who won a gold medal at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok in the team event, said no. “I was hot-tempered and never thought about that part, and I have no regrets,” he said.