'I did not receive the recording from prosecutors'

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon holds a press conference at the National Assembly's media center Sunday regarding Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won. [Yonhap]
Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon holds a press conference at the National Assembly's media center Sunday regarding Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won. [Yonhap]

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon on Sunday pushed back against ruling party claims that he had conducted a targeted investigation into Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won during his tenure as justice minister — specifically over allegations that Kim lobbied for approval of a new drug clinical trial.

Speaking at a press conference at the National Assembly two days before Kim's confirmation hearing, Han dismissed the ruling party's assertion. "Kim Seung-won was a complete nobody back then," he said, using the Korean slang term "deutbojap" — meaning a person so obscure as to be beneath notice. "Who would run a targeted investigation against a nobody?"

He added that the only time Kim had come to his attention was "when he called the National Assembly speaker from his own party 'GSGG' — a son of a bitch."

Han said he was hearing for the first time the claim made at an earlier press conference by Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers Seo Young-gyo, who chairs the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, and Kim Eui-kyum, who leads his party's side on the committee. The two had alleged that "circumstances have emerged showing that Han Dong-hoon's prosecutors tried to implicate opposition leader Lee Jae Myung from the very early stages of the investigation into nominee Kim Seung-won."

Han then said President Lee Jae Myung appeared to be implicated in what he called the "oppa poison lobby" scandal. "If you know something about that, please come forward and report it to me in the public interest," he said. "I will protect you both so you don't end up in a barrel."

Responding to Seo's remark that his language was unfit for a lawmaker, Han said, "The Democratic Party has outed whistleblowers and bared its teeth at the public. Teeth bared at the public need to be pulled."

On the ruling party's pressure to reveal the source of a recording related to the lobbying allegations against Kim, Han drew a line. "I did not receive it from prosecutors," he said. "But even if I had, there would be nothing wrong with that — it is something well worth protecting."

Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Dong-a had filed a complaint against Han alleging he leaked investigation materials related to Kim Seung-won, and police conducted an inquiry with the complainant Sunday. Han said, "Police let the Jeju missing-persons case go cold for months until the body was found, yet the moment the Democratic Party slaps them with a baseless complaint, they conduct a complainant inquiry on a Sunday — Sept. 13."

He went on to say, "If police keep conducting only investigations that suit the administration's taste, the force will sink ever lower." Han also said police had yet to summon him over his own complaint against Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok for spreading false information.

Han said he was effectively fighting alone against 200 opponents and would need to work 200 times harder than usual. "Among those 200 are 180 Democratic Party members, but also about 10 from Jang Dong-hyeok's party-leadership faction," he said. "If it means stopping this, I will post not 50 but 5,000 things a day on social media."

He then turned on Jang's faction directly. "If you are not going to fight alongside me, at least don't help the Democratic Party obstruct me," he said. "Just stick a flower in your hair and beat your drum."


20ki@heraldcorp.com