'Security guest' to presidential office

At U.S. drama "House of Cards," president creates a space for himself in the White House. After becoming president after plot and manipulation, fictional President Frank Underwood finds himself difficult to make a secret space. He makes a hideout place below iron stairs where he smokes and attempts deals with adversaries. Even in the drama, it is very difficult to avoid bodyguard's eyes.

At the parliamentary investigation session on the Choi Soon-sil scandal that started on Monday, Lee Young-seok, deputy chief of the Presidential Security Service, said Choi and Cha Eun-taek were "security guests," a term used inside the security office to refer to people who enter the presidential office without entrance card. This means that Lee could not have been reported on their entrance. Lee was trying to deny allegations that the security office helped Choi's influence peddling during the process he unintentionally exposed the fact that Cha made a free pass. While the fact that Choi entered the president's official residence freely is no secret, Cha's entrance is another hot news.

Cha is different from Choi, given that he had served several posts. For a year since April 2015, he dominated the cultural sector as the leader of the Creative Economy Leader and Cultural Enrichment, while mobilizing the president to appoint Kim Jong-deok, Kim Sang-ryul and Song Seong-gak in the cabinet, the presidential office and a public institution. While it is improper as a civil servant to enter the female president's residential office, it is even more absurd if he entered the private place of the president even after resignation. It is definitely unprecedented for President Park Geun-hye, who dislikes person to person reporting, to have met Cha even at night time.

Cha was reportedly to have boasted that he meets the president in person. Cha could have influence-peddled the overall national affairs beyond cultural affairs thanks to his private acquaintance to the president. After returning from his two-month flee in early last month, Cha told reporters that he met the president in official places but never met her in private. This was a lie. The Presidential Security Service should also bear responsibility for his free pass. At the parliament hearing, Cha should open up and frankly speak about allegations, in order to apologize truly to the public.

shchung@donga.com