Disclosure made in radio interview
Aide also raises allegations of inflated ARS costs
A former aide to Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Seung-won, identified only as A, warned Monday that "shocking content will be released through the media this week" in connection with fresh allegations surrounding Kim.
Speaking on CBS Radio's "Park Sung-tae's News Show" that day, A described a group he said includes "world-class data analysts, lawyers and journalists" who use publicly available information — what he called "open secrets" — to uncover facts through data analysis.
On Kim's abrupt withdrawal from his nomination as justice minister, A questioned whether it was appropriate for someone whose former organization was under investigation to become the minister overseeing those very investigative agencies. He said he had raised the controversy with several senior lawmakers on multiple occasions, but that they had "buried it."
A said that after sending a whistleblower letter to Cheong Wa Dae, he quickly ended a call with presidential political affairs secretary Hong Ik-pyo. He added that he also called Rep. Kim Ui-gyeom, who had been active on a special media reform committee while serving under Kim Seung-won. A said he had hoped to work through Kim Ui-gyeom — who leads his party's side on the committee — to block the nomination, but had not expected Kim to simply step down on Monday.
On additional allegations surrounding Kim, A claimed there were "many fatal undisclosed matters beyond accounting irregularities at the Gyeonggi Province party chapter." He said the Gyeonggi chapter had sent automated response system voice messages urging voters to cast ballots on two separate occasions around the 2024 general election, and that the vendor listed in the accounting report was not a licensed value-added telecommunications provider registered with the Ministry of Science and ICT, as would be required.
A said 300 million won was spent on the messages, noting that at 1 won per second and 20 seconds per call, each message would cost 20 won. He pointed out that Gyeonggi Province has about 11 million eligible voters — enough to cover the entire electorate — and argued that the provincial party chapter would neither have nor be permitted to have all those phone numbers.
Even assuming two rounds of messages were sent, A said that would amount to 7.5 million calls, questioning whether such a volume was even feasible. He also raised doubts about whether voters would have answered, given the high volume of calls during election season, and alleged the costs had been grossly inflated.
A also said he intended to continue releasing additional findings based on collected public records and data analysis.
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