One revelation after another

More revelations have come up suggesting a cozy relationship between Kim Dong-won — a political blogger involved in an organized online opinion rigging scheme for Democratic Party candidate Moon Jae-in ahead of last year’s presidential election on May 9 — and Moon’s former spokesman Kim Kyoung-soo, a DP lawmaker running for a gubernatorial post in the June election.

The latest revelations claim that Moon’s election camp had allowed the power blogger to recommend two candidates for public posts after Moon got elected.

In a police questioning, Kim Dong-won, also known by his online ID Druking, reportedly confessed that he had called Kim, the lawmaker, on Dec. 28 last year to recommend a lawyer who had been active in a group he ran to campaign for Moon as the counsel general for Sendai, Japan. He said he had proposed the same lawyer for the post of ambassador to Japan in June, but was turned down by Kim.

If what Druking claims is true, he and the lawmaker had struck a deal to reward his role in the campaign. Such favoritism is an outright crime. Rep. Kim denied the allegation, but the Seoul police investigating the case have not denied media reports.

Seoul Police Agency Commissioner Lee Ju-min acted as if he was hiding something in order to protect the close confidante of the president who is running for the governor of South Gyeongsang Province.

Prosecutors discovered destruction of evidence while arresting a key accomplice surnamed Park, the alleged developer of a program called “King Crab” that can automatically log in and out of individual members’ accounts and change their IP addresses. The police earlier said the program was purchased online. Since the police raid in March, the accomplices have destroyed the software they used on the Amazon Web Services platform. The police had given the criminals time to destroy the evidence.

There is not much time left to undo the wrong. The police and prosecutors must secure as much of the remaining evidence as possible to aid the independent counsel probe.

JoongAng Ilbo, May 17, Page 30