This article, "Yoon's hard line on "fairness" backfires," quoted, in part, below from today's Hankyoreh, may be one of the only English language news articles on the current crisis brewing over the Yoon presidential campaign in South Korea:
...It was revealed that in the resume Kim submitted to Suwon Women’s University in 2007 for an adjunct professorship, she falsely wrote that she served as an executive at the Korea Association of Game Industry and that she won the top award at the 2004 Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival. After submitting this resume, she was hired as an adjunct professor and worked at the university for 11 months.
Although Yoon’s remarks in the morning criticized the media coverage of his wife, he exhibited an about-face that afternoon. After his wife expressed her willingness to apologize to the public “for causing distress,” Yoon also changed his tone.
“No matter how much [my wife] may have to say on this issue, and no matter how much this feels like an unfair and planned offensive by the ruling party, if [she] was not able to live up to the high expectations of the public in even a small way then it is correct to feel apologetic,” he said.
“I just saw [her apology statement] and I think that her stance seems appropriate,” he added...*
*Yoon's hard line on "fairness" backfires, Hankyoreh, 12.16.21 by Kim Mi-na; https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1023629.html
This is just the tip of the iceberg concerning presidential candidate Yoon, his wife, and mother in law. Mother in law Choi Eun-sun was for some reason not prosecuted in 2015, when her partners in a medical rehabilitation care financial fraud scheme were convicted and imprisoned. She was convicted after reinvestigation of the case earlier this year, sentenced to three years, jailed, and then released on appeal. There are recordings in which mother in law brags about revenge taken on at least one earlier business partner, whom she allegedly defrauded of approximately 2 million dollars. In another instance, the Deutsche Motors stock manipulation case, in which she and her daughter are allegedly implicated, she confided to an acquaintance in a phone conversation, that the statute of limitations has passed after an incriminating admission. In that case, similar to the medical fraud case, her daughter Kim Geon-hee, Yoon's wife, unlike other participants, has not yet been arrested and indicted. This year, Yoon himself has been found to have violated professional ethics by a Ministry of Justice disciplinary board by interfering in cases, abandoning poliical impartiality, and unlawfully investigating sitting judges as Prosecutor General. Yoon quit his office rather than submit to professional discipline. He was suspended from official duties for two months. The suspension was upheld by two reviewing courts. His harshest critics remark that Yoon's history requires that he run for office to keep from going to prison. (Why would one conduct unlawful investigations of sitting judges other than to improperly influence their decisions?)
Returning to his spouse's situation, she appears unable to make public statements without digging herself into a deeper hole. While she claimed her private affairs were being unjustly investigated by the press, she could not help refrain from a reference to the prosecution of former Justice Minister Cho Guk's wife over an alleged forged voluntary service certificate submitted as part of a college admissions package for her daughter. Reportedly, Yoon himself instigated this prosecution against this democratic political rival and his family. Cho Guk's wife was convicted of the forgery after a very unusual investigation and prolonged trial. It is likely that the evidence was obtained unlawfully by the state, interpreted incorrectly by government forensic experts, that exculpatory evidence was withheld at the time of forensic evaluation, and at trial, etc. True to form in political prosecution cases, the chief witness against Cho Guk's wife, was himself suspected of unlawful conduct at the time, and may have been subject to prosecutorial misconduct.
Yoon's wife had the nerve to claim that her repeated misrepresentations on her resume did not amount in seriousness to the offense charged against Cho Guk's wife. She then went on to say if her "mistaken representations of facts amounted to a crime, so it's a crime" revealing her genuine attitude. Candidate Yoon claimed that the accusatory reports and queries by the press represented a plan by the incumbent party. Yoon implied that the misrepresentations in his wife's record are mistakes rather than intentional, and immaterial to the selection process of hiring adjunct or affiliated "professors." So the reference to hypocrisy oft cited by conservative candidate Yoon to justify his prosecution of the former Justice Minister and his wife, "Ne ro, nom bul," may be the aphorism for the election campaign, "when I do it, it's love, when they do it, it's adultery." The repeated misrepresentations in Kim's academic resume may be grounds for showing wrongful intent despite the argument by Yoon that the misrepresentations are immaterial to the job selection process. What the teaching resume does reflect is the complete disregard for the truth which Ms. Kim apparently learned at home. Kim and Choi were slick operators, street wise, and knew how to use a corrupt legal system to their advantage before Kim married Yoon. Now, outside the courtroom on the main stage of presidential politics, their heretofore carefully hidden characters have become more apparent.
The apologies of Yoon and his spouse are in the insincere variety, of being sorry in order to meet public expectations. Ms. Kim was video taped yesterday, leaving her offices, having her face covered and pushed down by her handler to make a quick exit so she would not have the opportunity to respond to any other inquiries concerning her past behavior. Some in the conservative party have suggested that questions about Kim's honesty and ethics aren't germane because the party "didn't nominate her." It's a weak argument after putting Cho Guk's entire family at risk of criminal prosecution, issuing 80 warrants against them, forcing Cho from office, and convicting them in the press with leaks. The power struggle in South Korea over the control of judicial administration and the state is not over.
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