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Former Blue House Secretary Jeong Ho-seong
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Choi had no expertise in government, but Pres. Park ordered leaks and reflected Choi’s opinions in her decisions
Multiple pieces of evidence have surfaced in the Choi Sun-sil scandal trial to suggest former Blue House Secretary Jeong Ho-seong, 48, leaked confidential government documents to Choi Sun-sil on orders from President Park Geun-hye. In a report from his questioning presented by prosecutors at his criminal trial on Feb. 16 under Kim Se-yun of Seoul Central District Court’s 22nd criminal division, Jeong was quoted as telling prosecutors, “Frankly speaking, Choi Sun-sil did not have the capacity to revise speech materials for all areas of the President’s governance, but [I] received her help because she was someone who knew the President’s feelings very well.” When asked by prosecutors whether this was “what the President wanted,” Jeong answered in the affirmative. “There was nobody besides Choi who could be trusted with the President’s personal business,” he continued. “The President instructed [me] to listen to Choi’s opinions. Nearly every day, [I] sent documents to Choi, delivering materials or talking on the phone several times a day.” Jeong effectively admitted Choi’s involvement in government operations. During questioning by prosecutors, he said, “There are different ways to interpret ‘involvement in government operations,’ but it is true that there were reflections of Choi’s opinions in the President’s decision-making.” When asked by prosecutors if it had been his own determination to send Choi an announcement of the selection of the National Intelligence Service director, Jeong replied, “It was the President’s will.” Prosecutors also revealed a text message sent to Choi by Jeong reading, “The VIP [President] asked whether you have confirmed, and when I told her I had not received [confirmation] yet, she said the get the confirmation quickly.” The prosecutors additionally showed transcripts of a telephone conversation between Park and Jeong. In the late Oct. 2013 conversation, Park was quoted as saying to Jeong, “The materials for the talk on Prime Minister Chung Hong-won are here. What do I do? The announcement is tomorrow.” In response, Jeong was quoted as saying, “I discussed it with [Choi Sun-sil], and the content doesn’t seem to be appropriate.” “Yes, I see,” Park was quoted as replying. Prosecutors explained that this was “proof that leaking of government documents was second nature for President Park.” Evidence also suggested that Park was aware of the issues involved in asking for opinions about governance-related matters from Choi, a non-government figure. In his questioning by prosecutors, Jeong said that after a scandal erupted in Nov. 2014 over the leaking of documents related to Choi’s ex-husband Chung Yoon-hoi, he “told the president ‘you have to stop leaking documents to Choi and talking and the phone,’ and she agreed to that.” Prosecutors also shared an email exchange between Jeong and Choi, which began strangely with an entertainment news article about the film “The Avengers” before continuing on to include confidential Blue House information midway through. Prosecutors said this was “evidence that they disguised [the content] because they thought it would be an issue if the email went public.” Meanwhile, Jeong’s team moved on Feb. 16 to withdraw a request to examine Choi’s tablet PC. “A file for the Dresden speech discovered on the tablet PC was found to be from an Android operating system, not an Apple operating system [as previously claimed by Jeong’s team],” prosecutors explained. By Heo Jae-hyun, staff reporter Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
