Cheong Wa Dae staff must not assist in president's personal criminal defense

Cheong Wa Dae staff must not assist in president's personal criminal defense. November. 23, 2016 07:22. pisong@donga.com.

When Yoo Yeong-ha, President Park Geun-hye's personal attorney, distributed a statement refuting the prosecution's investigation results that implicated the president as an accomplice in the corruption and influence-peddling scandal involving her confidante Choi Soon-sil, he used the e-mail account of an official at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. Presidential spokesman Jung Youn-kuk explained that Cheong Wa Dae's office of the senior presidential secretary for civil affairs helped the attorney, rather than playing leading roles in drafting the rebuttal statement. The spokesman noted that the office simply provided an office space and some materials because he did not bring his laptop computer.

The expenses for running the presidential office are paid with taxpayers' money, which should not be spent in defending the president in a criminal case involving her, just as a company owner would commit embezzlement if he paid for his attorney with the company's funds. Yoo is just a personal attorney for President Park.

Most President Park's accusations stem from the process in which she performed her job. As acts of coercion or abuse of official authority are mixed in the job performing process, it is difficult to clear separate the two. As an attorney can request public offices for access to information needed to protect his or her client, the president's lawyer may do the same with the presidential office. The attorney and presidential secretaries must be clearly aware that even when the presidential office responds to the attorney's requests, defending the president in a criminal case is a personal matter.

Choi Jae-kyung, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, claimed that the late former President Roh Moo-hyun had his personal attorneys when the National Assembly voted to impeach him, but that Cheong Wa Dae led the defensive process. Roh's aides deny such an allegation. Even if they did, the current presidential office shouldn't follow the wrongful practice.

The Cheong Wa Dae official who provided the attorney with the e-mail account resigned from the prosecution in August 2014 for the job at the presidential office. During her election campaign in 2012, President Park vowed to restrict prosecutors from being transferred to other government agencies -- a promise she never kept. The prosecutor-turned Cheong Wa Dae official once served under Choi at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office. Among four ex-prosecutors whom Choi's predecessor, Woo Byung-woo, hired at the presidential office, the official is the only one who had been professionally involved with Choi. If Choi uses his subordinate for a personal matter of the president, the act could be the first step toward becoming a second Woo Byung-woo, one of the key figures in the influence-peddling scandal. Choi should be very careful.