The many Yoon Suk Yeols of Yeouido

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The many Yoon Suk Yeols of Yeouido

Published: 08 Jan. 2026, 00:01

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Lee Hyun-sang

The author is a columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo.

Public reaction to former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, former first lady Kim Keon Hee, has been marked not only by anger but by bewilderment. In a country that calls itself a democracy, the sight of a presidential couple crossing lines that power should never cross, without caution or restraint, has been jarring. Yoon's declaration of martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, was shocking in constitutional terms. More troubling, at least to this writer, were the allegations surrounding Kim, including illicit financial dealings and the privatization of public authority. Korea often speaks of “imperial power,” but there was little imperial dignity in how power was exercised.

Kim Byung-kee, then floor leader of the Democratic Party, and lawmaker Kang Sun-woo, now an independent, talk as they walk during the second plenary session of the 430th extraordinary session of the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, on Dec. 24, 2025. Jung Chung-rae, leader of the Democratic Party, lower left, watches them. [NEWS1]

A similar pattern has surfaced in the local political arena of Dongjak District in Seoul. The allegations surrounding Democratic Party (DP) lawmaker Kim Byung-kee and his spouse remain under investigation and await judicial judgment. Still, based on what has emerged so far, the logic by which power operates and justifies itself bears a striking resemblance to the Yoon-Kim former presidential couple saga. Claims of cash transfers involving a spouse, abuse of authority for private gain, mistreatment of aides and attempts to conceal evidence amount to what critics call a local version of the Yoon-Kim former presidential couple affair.

Kim Byung-kee, a former National Intelligence Service official, has styled himself as a “black agent” for President Lee Jae Myung. True to his background, his actions revealed through media reports appear meticulous and calculating. He allegedly approached a then-ruling People Power Party lawmaker he had once criticized as a key pro-Yoon figure to seek help in blunting an investigation into his wife. He reportedly recorded a colleague’s plea for mercy as a precaution. His efforts to block the release of restaurant CCTV footage have fueled suspicions of evidence tampering. When faced with threats to survival and interest, he seemed to observe few boundaries.

It is telling that the scandal was triggered by allegations of abuse toward aides. Reports that staff were ordered to investigate a son’s university transfer or were pressed into handling private moves despite being paid with public funds were startling. Parliamentary aides appeared to have been treated as personal servants. The episode exposed how a constituency, meant to be a space of public responsibility, had become a privately controlled domain.

More serious still is the alleged manipulation of candidate nominations. Petitions submitted by former district council members claim that cash was handed to Kim’s spouse around the 2020 general election and later returned. The documents even suggest the spouse remarked that the amount was too large for a holiday gift but too small for a nomination contribution. There are also claims that a district council corporate card was handed over and used for private purposes. The facts must be established. Even so, it is difficult to avoid suspicion that public authority was turned into a tool for private transactions.

It would be naive to think such practices are confined to Dongjak. Allegations have already surfaced involving lawmaker Kang Sun-woo and a Seoul city council member over a 100 million won ($69,000) payment tied to nominations. When central politics effectively controls local nominations, it is reasonable to suspect that such shadowy dealings are structural rather than exceptional. Claims that tens of millions of won changed hands in snack shopping bags no longer sound implausible.

These cases show how easily local politics can be distorted when captured by the center. They also help explain why local councils repeatedly become entangled in licensing and permitting scandals. A system that funnels power and resources upward ultimately reduces local politics to a private instrument of national politicians. The observation by Gregory Henderson that Korean politics resembles a “vortex toward the top” remains painfully relevant.

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol, left, and his wife, Kim Keon Hee. [YONHAP]

As the Kim Byung-kee and Kang Sun-woo allegations appeared to reach into the party’s inner circle, the DP moved to contain the damage by framing them as isolated deviations. Party leader Jung Chung-rae dismissed the matter as a human error rather than a systemic failure and rejected opposition calls for a special prosecutor. But when money allegedly changed hands with the Seoul council member, Kang Sun-woo served as secretary of a local election nomination committee. When a petition exposing nomination donations was filed, Kim Byung-kee chaired the general election candidate verification panel and reportedly buried it. These figures were not outside the system. They were the system.

If all this is reduced to individual misconduct, then the Yoon-Kim former presidential couple affair was also merely personal. There would have been no need to prosecute dozens of people or launch three unprecedented special probes under the banner of overcoming insurrection. To invoke grand narratives of treason and abuse of power for Yongsan District while shielding one’s own core figures behind claims of personal failing is a clear double standard. Justice should be most exacting when it confronts faults on one’s own side.

Every deviation begins with individuals. But when repeated deviations are dismissed as personal matters, warning signals are downgraded to background noise. Organizations that mistake signals for noise lose their capacity for self-correction and slowly sink. The former ruling party that ignored the warning signs sent out by the presidential couple learned that lesson the hard way.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.