Former Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo. [Yonhap]
Former Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo. [Yonhap]

Former Daegu Mayor Hong Jun-pyo claimed Tuesday that the Lee Jae Myung administration had spent the past year conducting background investigations into him.

Hong wrote on SNS that he had held his tongue long enough and could no longer stay silent. He recalled that during the Moon Jae-in administration, investigators had spent a year and a half scrutinizing him, his son, his wife and even his daughter-in-law. "No matter how hard they dug, nothing came up, so in the end they had someone in power come and apologize to me," he wrote.

He then alleged that since the Lee Jae Myung administration took office, investigators had spent a year looking into his background — recently going through his wife's phone and combing through his campaign finances from the October 2021 presidential primary through the April 2025 Daegu mayoral election. "They are claiming I created a slush fund through fictitious transactions," he said.

Hong said that based on a single malicious false tip, investigators had slapped exit bans on all the volunteers who had worked for him at the time — people whose reimbursements had been approved by National Election Commission audits — and were summoning them daily to harass them. "The message is: give us something on Hong Jun-pyo and we'll go easy on you," he said.

He compared the investigation to former Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon's prosecutions of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae and Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong. "Of the 48 charges Han brought against Yang, 47 were acquitted — all but one minor count. Lee Jae-yong was acquitted on all 19 charges. It was a dirty, dust-shaking investigation," Hong said, adding that the current conduct was "even more base than Han Dong-hoon's."

Hong also said it was absurd to label as a slush fund the money that volunteer groups scattered across the country had independently pooled and spent on campaign support — groups he said he had no way of knowing about. "Coercing people with the message 'give us Hong Jun-pyo and we'll let you off' is outrageous," he wrote. He then asked whether the probe — launched after an investigation into polling-related allegations tied to political broker Myung Tae-gyun turned up nothing, prompting investigators to pursue a separate case — was being directed from Cheong Wa Dae, or was "the unilateral decision of a Daegu police chief blinded by ambition."

Hong has been reported to authorities over allegations tied to a polling firm effectively run by political broker Myung Tae-gyun. The allegations center on claims that Hong's camp commissioned more than 10 polls — from the 2020 general election through the 2022 presidential election and local elections — designed to produce results favorable to him, with close associates covering the roughly 60 million won ($43,000) in costs on his behalf.

Separate allegations have also emerged that Hong's 2022 local election campaign illegally obtained a People Power Party membership list and provided it to Myung's polling operation for use in surveys.


min3654@heraldcorp.com