Top presidential aides to speak about surveillance claims

Cho Kuk, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, attends a ceremony to appoint new Supreme Court justice Kim Sang-whan at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap

By Park Ji-won

President Moon Jae-in's top two aides ―chief of staff Im Jong-seok and civil affairs senior secretary Cho Kuk ― will speak about Cheong Wa Dae's alleged illegal surveillance of citizens at the National Assembly today.

Lawmakers from ruling and opposition parties are expected to trade barbs over the illegal surveillance claims raised by Kim Tae-woo, a former Cheong Wa Dae staffer, who is now under a corruption investigation.

Opposition parties have raised political offensives against the ruling camp over Kim's claims, while Cheong Wa Dae denied them.

According to Cheong Wa Dae, Kim, a prosecution investigator who has worked under the Cheong Wa Dae special inspection team three times under the administrations of Lee Myung-bak, Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in, is making false accusations and releasing confidential information obtained during his time at the presidential office. Cheong Wa Dae filed a criminal complaint against Kim on those charges. Kim, meanwhile, is claiming he did his job as instructed by the presidential office.

If the allegation is proven to be true, it could deal a major blow to the ruling bloc as it had strongly denounced the former Park Geun-hye administration's blacklist on artists and activists critical of the government.

Cho had been repeatedly asked to appear at the Assembly to be questioned by lawmakers over his job during the parliamentary audit. However, he never did so citing he was occupied with state affairs.

Opposition parties, especially the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), will likely go all-out to criticize Cho for spying on citizens under his supervision. The LKP has been criticizing the presidential office, asking Cho to resign from the post to take responsibility for the controversy. The LKP has formed an investigation team to step up its criticism against the ruling camp and revealed documents obtained from Kim.

However, the ruling camp is actively defending the officials of the presidential office that the allegation is part of a political attack by the opposition camp.

Also likely on the table are questions related to an alleged “blacklist” made by Kim that lists the names of executives at public firms under the supervision of the environmental ministry to manage the figures who worked for former administrations.

The list, released by the main opposition LKP last week, outlined whether the heads of ministry-affiliated organizations, who were appointed by previous administrations, were planning to resign or not. The LKP claimed the Moon Jae-in administration made the list to force the heads to step down and appoint those close to the current administration to the posts.

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), however, claimed that “A human resource document is not always a blacklist.”