Jang Dong-hyeok: 'Time for aides to abandon the president'
Jeong Jeom-sik: Lee Yong-cheol must rule out dropping charges
The People Power Party kept up its sharp attacks Thursday on the so-called "fabricated indictment special prosecutor act," demanding a presidential veto while pledging to scrutinize Justice Minister nominee Lee Yong-cheol.
PPP leader Jang Dong-hyeok, speaking at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly on Thursday morning, took aim at a dinner President Lee Jae Myung held with Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok and floor leader Han Byung-do. "I hear President Lee Jae Myung dined with Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok and floor leader Han Byung-do and emphasized that the party and government are of one mind," Jang said. "That must mean: we are all in the same boat as jailbreak accomplices, so don't even think about going your own way."
Jang also turned his fire on nominee Lee. "Nominee Lee, who has received a special mission to engineer a jailbreak, has been repeating the same line for three days — 'I will watch how the fact-finding special prosecutor proceeds,'" Jang said. "That amounts to saying he will do whatever it takes to get Lee Jae Myung's charges dropped and help him escape."
On the special prosecutor act itself, Jang said even former Justice Minister Jeong Seong-ho — who had searched more thoroughly than anyone — had in effect confessed to finding no fabrication. "Unless you fabricate the fabrication, the special prosecutor's investigation cannot even get off the ground," he said.
Jang predicted the probe would become "not a special prosecutor into fabricated indictment, but a special prosecutor that fabricates the investigation itself," adding that the public would trust no conclusion it reached and that those involved would end up in prison for distorting the law.
Jang also criticized President Lee's planned trip to China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. "He will go off to China and leave Prime Minister Han Seong-sook to push the bill through the Cabinet," Jang said. "He hands the prime minister whatever could land someone in prison and flees to China himself. It seems the time has come for even his own aides to abandon the president."
"Time is truly running out," Jang said, urging that the trial resume before "defendant Lee Jae Myung tears up his own indictment with his own hands."
Jang warned that if the court kept delaying and the "Lee Jae Myung jailbreak project" succeeded, the court itself would face public judgment as a jailbreak accomplice. "President Lee Jae Myung — if you have any conscience, you must exercise your veto," he said.
PPP floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik added his own criticism of nominee Lee. "The justice minister of the Lee Jae Myung government is nothing more than a minister specially tasked with dropping charges," Jeong said. "Nominee Lee Yong-cheol is faithfully playing that role."
Jeong said the premise of a "fact-finding" inquiry into fabricated indictment required at least one piece of circumstantial evidence or proof of deliberate fabrication, yet the prosecutors' future committee led by Justice Minister Jeong Seong-ho had found no illegality.
"The Democratic Party has been completely unable to point to anything specific about how or in what way the indictment in President Lee Jae Myung's case was fabricated," Jeong said. "They are simply repeating the phrase 'fabricated indictment' over and over, like a cult chant, with no basis whatsoever."
Jeong said that because of President Lee, the top criterion for selecting a justice minister had become "the ability to help him escape," and vowed rigorous scrutiny of the nominee.
"If nominee Lee does not state unequivocally that dropping the charges is absolutely out of the question, we will have no choice but to conclude he is categorically unfit to serve as minister," Jeong said.
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