By Kim Rahn
President Park Geun-hye’s lawyers and the independent counsel team are holding last-minute talks to set the date for the first-ever questioning of an incumbent president in the nation’s history.
Independent counsel Park Young-soo himself is expected to quiz the President instead of assistant counsels later next week.
To zero in on the President, the special prosecution team has questioned dozens of figures involved in the widespread corruption scandal, including former and incumbent government officials, ministers, professors and doctors.
One of the key allegations the President faces is bribery involving conglomerates, which the prosecution had earlier failed to confirm and passed on to the counsel.
Cheong Wa Dae officials allegedly pressured 53 companies to provide 77.4 billion won ($66.4 million) to the Mir and K-Sports foundations controlled by Park’s confidant Choi Soon-sil. The counsel suspects some of them sought business favors from the government in return for the money.
The money was funneled to Choi and her associates, but the team regards it as bribes for the President, believing Choi and Park shared economic interests — an allegation Park denies.
It sought an arrest warrant for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong for offering bribes, but a local court rejected the request. For more solid ground for the bribery charges, the counsel will have to question Park, the alleged co-recipient of the money.
Another allegation is that the President allowed Choi, who has never held a government post, access to confidential documents and to meddle in personnel affairs.
Former presidential secretary Jeong Ho-seong told investigators that the President had ordered him to seek Choi’s opinion in state affairs.
Choi also allegedly intervened in the appointment of high-ranking officials including former Culture Minister Kim Jong-deok, former Vice Culture Minister Kim Chong and former Korea Creative Content Agency CEO Song Sung-gak.
In a recent interview with an online news outlet, Park partially admitted Choi’s personnel affairs intervention, but said it was only about recommendations and the recommended candidates went through the verification process.
But suspicions are growing that she also meddled in the appointment of ambassadors to several Southeast Asian countries where she sought business opportunities.
The counsel will also dig into Cheong Wa Dae’s alleged creation of a blacklist of artists critical of the government. While Park says she does not know about the list, the counsel has already collected evidence unfavorable to her, and arrested former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon and former Culture Minister Cho Yoon-sun on the charges.
What Park was doing in the first seven hours of the Sewol ferry sinking on April 16, 2014, is another issue the counsel team has to ask the President.
More than two-and-a-half years have passed since the tragedy in which more than 300 lost their lives, but Cheong Wa Dae has failed to clarify Park’s whereabouts, only continuing to say she received written and phone reports about the disaster and gave orders to officials. Her lawyers denied rumors that she was receiving cosmetic treatment during those hours, but without any details.
If she was not properly responding to the sinking because of such treatment or other reasons, it would constitute dereliction of duty. It is to be seen whether the President will tell the truth about the “missing seven hours” to the independent counsel.