It was confirmed yesterday (16th) that Jeong Jin-sang, deputy chief of staff of the Democratic Party's Election Countermeasures Committee, who is considered to be the closest aide to Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, recently appeared to the prosecution privately and was investigated.
According to the Democratic Party's election committee, on the afternoon of the 13th, Deputy Director Jeong appeared to the investigation team of the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office, which is investigating allegations of lobbying and preferential treatment in Daejang-dong, and returned home the next day.
It was determined that the investigation continued until midnight.
The appearance of the Deputy Chief of Staff, who appeared at the investigation agency for the first time after the suspicion of large-scale operation, was not captured by the media both when he appeared at the prosecution and when he returned home from the investigation.
This is the first time that the Deputy Chief of Staff has been investigated by an investigative agency in relation to the Daejanggong allegation.
Deputy Director Jeong is a close aide that Lee himself acknowledged and is a key figure in the case considered as the 'last key man' who will investigate the reality of the Daejang-dong allegation.
Daejang-dong payment line characters… Prior to the search and seizure, it was revealed that he and Yoo Dong-gyu were talking on the phone.
The name of the Deputy Chief of Staff was revealed while the licensing process of the project was revealed in the phase of the Daejang-dong suspicion. Several approval documents passed in the process of approving the Daejang-dong urban development project by Seongnam City were published in media reports, and the name of the head of the government department, who holds the title of policy director, appeared.
It is confirmed that Deputy Director Jeong personally signed several documents related to Daejang-dong that have been disclosed so far. As Candidate Lee served as Seongnam City Policy Director from 2010 to 2018, when he was serving as Seongnam Mayor, he was one of the major managers who would have been involved in the decision-making process of the Daejang-dong project at the time depending on his position.
It was during the raid and seizure of former Seongnam Urban Development Corporation's planning division head Dong-gyu Yoo that the name of the deputy head of government received a lot of media attention. In September of last year, when allegations of large-scale movement began in earnest, the prosecution raided and searched the house of former general manager Yoo, the key figure in the case. The point in time when Deputy Director Jeong spoke with former Director Yoo was two days before Yoo was arrested, which coincided with the urgent investigation into Daejang-dong at that time.
As the fact of the call became known, questions such as 'why was the call at this time' and 'who made the call' increased, and the deputy chief of government released a statement to the press.
The explanation of the deputy head of government was, "At a time when the transcript of (former general manager Yoo) was widely reported in the media, it was so different from the appearance of former general manager Yoo that I was familiar with, so I decided that it was necessary to check it myself."
Deputy director general Jeong also claimed that he had instructed former general manager Yoo, "If there is a mistake, do not hide it and faithfully engage in the investigation."
Yoo Dong-gyu throws his cell phone out of the window he spoke with Jin-sang Jeong… Because of 'destroying evidence'?
Deputy Director Jeong responded positively by even issuing a statement like this, but it was argued that the explanation was not persuasive. Opposition parties raised the claim that 'Didn't the deputy chief of government make a phone call to crack down on the mouth of former general manager Yoo, who will be arrested soon?' It is pointed out that the situation was not in a situation where there was a kind of confirmation or a conversation to ask for, as the deputy chief of the government said, because it was an urgent time when the arrest of the person concerned was expected, as well as a home search for Yoo.
It is said that former general manager Yoo even tried to make an extreme choice right before the search and seizure. Candidate Lee revealed this fact for the first time at the Gyeonggi State Audit in October last year, saying, "From what I've heard, former general manager Yoo took drugs to commit suicide during the search and seizure." Yoo's lawyer also backed this up by saying, "(At the time, Yoo) was taking sleeping pills along with alcohol."
It was also revealed that Yoo, who was on the phone with the deputy chief of staff, tossed out of the window on the 9th floor of an officetel before the prosecutors who were conducting a search and seizure raided his house. This situation can be seen as an attempt to destroy evidence by hastily discarding the cell phone in order to conceal the fact of a call with the Deputy Chief of Government or someone.
In addition to these allegations that Deputy Chief of Staff Yoo spoke on the phone right before the search and seizure, he also appears as a central figure in the 'suspicion of pressure to resign from Hwang Moo-seong.'
The allegation is that certain individuals forced the former president Hwang Moo-seong, who served as the first president of Seongnam Urban Development Corporation, to resign from his position in the early days of the Daejang-dong development project.
The central figure in the allegations is Yu Yuhan-ki, former head of Seongnam Urban Development Corporation's development business division, who passed away recently due to an extreme choice.
Appeared in the transcript of 'Hwang Wu-seong's resignation pressure'... What was the 'Director Jung' mentioned by the deceased Yuhan-gi?
The transcript of February 6, 2015, released by former President Hwang, contains the process of Mr. Yoo, who died, forcing Hwang to resign. According to the transcript, Mr. Yoo visits former president Hwang and urges him to resign, saying that 'there was an order from above, such as former general manager Yoo Dong-gyu and 'director Jeong'. The person named 'Chief Jeong' mentioned by Mr. Yoo is designated as the Deputy Chief of Government Office, who was the head of the Seongnam City Policy Office at the time.
Mr. Yoo mentions the word 'Chief Jeong' eight times in the transcript. When former president Hwang asked Mr. Yoo, "Are you floating around (to get your resignation letter), or is it like that, whether both Jung and Dong-gyu (then Seongnam Urban Development Corporation's planning division head) are like that?" Mr. ' he also replied.
In the transcript, Mr. Yoo even said to former president Hwang, "Isn't this at the mayor's order? It's the mayor's story." It is as if the mayor of Seongnam at the time Lee Jae-myung ordered the resignation of former president Hwang. In the midst of this, former president Hwang resigned after less than half of his term of office, and the development project in Daejang-dong was accelerated by the leadership of two key figures, Yoo Dong-gyu and Yu Han-gi, who are called 'Yu 1' and 'Yoo 2'.
Prosecutors have been investigating the specific circumstances behind the pressure to resign by calling on former president Hwang.
This is because charges of abuse of power and coercion can be applied if Yoo, who died as stated in the transcript, gave instructions from the then-deputy chief of the government, who was called 'Chief Jeong' in the process of pressing Hwang to resign.
In the same vein, if the 'mayor's name' contained in the transcript actually existed, a so-called 'superior investigation' of this candidate would be possible.
Director Jeong said that he had no involvement in the resignation of former president Hwang.
Mr. Yoo, who died, mentioned 'Chief Chung' and 'Mayor' in a conversation with former president Hwang, but he said that he had nothing to do with him.
It is possible that one of the two lied, but this suspicion is a situation in which the investigation is not easy as Mr. Yoo, who has been requested for an arrest warrant, made an extreme choice ahead of the warrant review.
Candidate Jae-myung Lee also acknowledged the 'closest' and the last key man on the road to 'superbroad investigation'.
Deputy Chief of Staff Jeong appeared several times in various phases of the Jangdong-dong allegation, but so far he has not been investigated by the prosecution. This is also the reason why the opposition party criticizes the investigation team, saying, 'Isn't it a lack of will to investigate?' Hee-ryong Won, head of the People's Power Policy Division, said, "Mr. Jeong Jin-sang is standing at the intersection of Daejang-dong Gate. Both those who were about to die and those who have already died pointed to him. also did
It is also noteworthy that Deputy Director Chung is the core of the so-called 'Gyeonggi-do Line', which has a long relationship with Candidate Lee. At a press conference held at the Gyeonggi Provincial Office in October last year, after the suspicion of Daejang-dong was raised, when Lee Dong-gyu was asked if former general manager Yoo Dong-gyu was an aide, he denied that he was "one of the people who helped and helped in the mayoral election." Shouldn't it be something like that?" he said.
Deputy Chief of Staff Chung formed a relationship with Candidate Lee during his civil movement in 1994, and it is known that he has been an assistant to his closest aide to this day. In the past, when candidate Lee worked as a lawyer, he served as the secretary of the lawyer's office, and since then, as candidate Lee entered public office, he went to Seongnam City Hall and Gyeonggi Province to assist in close quarters.
As Lee's oldest and closest aide, there is also a prospect that the chief of government will become the center of power through the election.
Deputy Chief of Staff for the Election Committee, served by Deputy Chief of Staff, was the position held by Yang Jeong-cheol, former head of the Institute for Democracy, in the election committee of Moon Jae-in during the 2017 presidential election.
Despite allegations of 'Daejang-dong', it is widely held in the political circles that this candidate, who has placed the deputy chief of staff in the key position of deputy chief of staff, will continue to use the chief of government in the future.
Following Yoo Yuhan-gi, who died last month, Kim Moon-ki, former head of development at Seongnam Urban Development Corporation, also passed away as an extreme choice.
In particular, there is an opinion that the abuse of power is relatively easy to apply because there is a transcript of the alleged damage to the former president Hwang's resignation.
The investigative team that took the test again after 100 days of launch… Should I make use of the last chance of 'superior investigation'?
The problem is how much time is left. The statute of limitations for the prosecution is 7 years because the act of pressure to resign is legally an abuse of power and obstruction of the exercise of the right. If the investigation does not reveal additional criminal circumstances related to the pressure to resign, the opportunity to reveal the truth may be lost forever.
In a text message sent by the Democratic Party to reporters last month, Deputy Chief of Staff Jeong said, "We have already delivered an opinion regarding the prosecution's attendance, and we are adjusting the date of attendance." After some reports of refusal to appear in the prosecution came out, they said it was not true. Although the summons schedule was slightly delayed due to the successive extreme choices of Mr. Koh Yu-gi and Director Kim Moon-ki, it seems that even as the deputy chief of government, he was now in a position where he could not refuse the request of the investigative agency to appear.
The Seoul Central Prosecutor's Office, which is investigating allegations of preferential treatment for Daejang-dong development due to the summons of the Deputy Chief of Staff, has been put to the test once again.
This is because the presidential election is approaching on the 51st, and the appointment of the prosecution is scheduled at the beginning of the year, so there is not much time left until the investigation into the chief of the government and the investigation into the allegation of Jang Dong-dong are finalized.
The investigation team celebrated its 100th anniversary starting on the 6th, amid criticism that the investigation was slow, including the dismissal of warrants for several times, including the dismissal of the arrest warrant for former lawmaker Kwak Sang-do.
The world is paying attention to how far the investigation team, which has been dedicated to the 'bottom line investigation' for a short period of time, can finally achieve the 'upper line investigation' that has finally seized the opportunity.
(Planning/Production: D Contents Planning Department / Design: Jisoo Ok)