Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won answers reporters’ questions as he arrives at his confirmation hearing preparation office in the Jeokseon Hyundai Building in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Sept. 10.NEWS1
Lee Hyun-sang
The author is a columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo.
“I vouch for him as the right person to reform the prosecution and judiciary.” This was not today’s Democratic Party (DP) leadership defending Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won. It was then-floor leader Lee In-young speaking seven years ago, when Cho Kuk, despite mounting controversy, paid a courtesy visit to the party after being nominated justice minister. Everyone knows what followed. Cho resigned 35 days after taking office, and the scandal ultimately helped ignite a crisis for the Moon Jae-in administration.
“The more I look at it, the better the appointment seems.” That is what DP leader Kim Min-seok has said about Kim. How will those words age? A Gallup Korea poll found 43 percent considered the nomination inappropriate, nearly twice the 22 percent who considered it appropriate. Kim Min-seok’s remark seems more likely to be preserved as an embarrassment than celebrated as prophetic.
The Kim controversy increasingly resembles the “Cho Kuk scandal” that shook the Moon administration. Both erupted over nominees for justice minister, a position expected to embody legal integrity and fairness. As allegations surrounding Cho multiplied, the administration’s approval ratings fell. New expressions mocking the gap between his words and conduct entered political slang.
Allegations against Kim likewise seem to multiply by the day. They began with claims of influence peddling involving a clinical trial for a new drug and expanded to drunk driving during his years as a lawyer and the false registration of his minor child’s residence. His repeated, unconvincing explanations and revisions have further eroded trust. As the progressive camp’s claims to fairness and moral superiority crumble, public feelings of betrayal deepen.
The ruling party’s determination to defend him at all costs is also familiar. Seven years ago, the DP rejected opposition demands to call Cho’s family members as witnesses at his confirmation hearing. This time, the ruling party removed all 44 witnesses requested by the opposition, while producing another quote worth preserving: “Hearings without witnesses are normal.” If, as Kim and the DP claim, prosecutors investigated him exhaustively and found nothing, why fear a hearing?
There are differences. The atmosphere among supporters outside the party is markedly cooler. In 2019, massive candlelight rallies in Seocho-dong and determined mobilization by pro-Moon supporters served as a shield for the administration. Today, unconditional defense has given way partly to cynicism and discomfort. The difference in political weight between Kim and Cho and factional divisions within the party may help explain it.
The decisive difference is the likelihood of intervention by investigative authorities. During the Cho scandal, prosecutors launched sudden compulsory investigations under Yoon Suk Yeol, who was serving as prosecutor general at the time. The investigations shook the political landscape and rallied progressives around an image of Cho as a victim of a “political prosecution.”
Today is different. The prosecution has already been stripped of much of its investigative authority through restructuring. Police, meanwhile, are preoccupied with reorganizing investigative units under a new administration and are hardly positioned to launch a full-scale investigation into this case.
Does the DP feel safe because an investigation is unlikely? Or does it regard its response to the Cho scandal as a textbook? Instead of transparently addressing the allegations, it has revived the familiar frame of “reform versus resistance.” It is even considering revising the National Assembly Act to target Rep. Han Dong-hoon, who has led the disclosures — a strategy of attacking the messenger to discredit the message.
Despite the nominee’s moral and legal risks, the ruling leadership has declared an all-out campaign to protect Kim. It has even embraced the so-called Kim-saeng, Yong-sa option: save Kim Seung-won while forcing Gender Equality and Family Minister nominee Yong Hye-in to step down.
Such a strategy is devastating if it fails and dangerous even if it succeeds, because it can turn an individual’s liabilities into those of an entire organization. Instead of building a firewall between Kim and the party, the DP has bound their fates together. That choice may protect the nominee in the short term, but it also ensures that any scandal will implicate the party itself.
Perhaps risks like these seem insignificant beside the larger objective of resolving the president’s own judicial risks. But is the party really prepared to replay the tragedy witnessed during the Cho Kuk scandal, this time as farce?
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.
