CIO says it might investigate first lady

CIO chief Kim Jin-wook, right, answers lawmakers' questions at a meeting of the National Assembly's Judiciary and Legislation committee in Yeouido, southern Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP]

The government anti-corruption watchdog could launch a probe into first lady Kim Keon-hee following a formal complaint by a civic group and growing calls from the Democratic Party (DP) for an investigation into various allegations.

At a meeting with lawmakers on the National Assembly’s Judiciary and Legislation committee on Wednesday, Kim Jin-wook, chief of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO), confirmed the possibility of a probe into allegations against first lady in responses to questions from committee member and DP lawmaker Park Beom-kye.

“We are currently reviewing the possibility [of investigating Kim],” Kim said, adding that any probe would “follow the law and the rules.”

A complaint to the CIO against the first lady was filed by a civic association called the Citizens' Movement to Restore Justice on July 20. The complaint also accused President Yoon Suk-yeol and People Power Party floor leader Kweon Seong-dong of alleged misdeeds.

The CIO, which was begun under the previous Moon Jae-in administration, has come under scrutiny in recent months for rifling through the phone records of journalists over unfavorable media coverage of the agency’s chief.

Since its establishment, the CIO has been criticized by PPP lawmakers as well as President Yoon for probes beneficial to the DP, which passed the bill establishing the office to assume investigative powers previously held by the state prosecution service.

The pointed questions by Park, who served as justice minister under Moon, came as the DP made public plans to pass a bill establishing a special counsel probe into various allegations against the first lady.

If passed, the special counsel probe would investigate allegations that the first lady took an acquaintance without an official government role along during the president’s trip to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) June summit in Madrid, Spain, as well as suspicions of academic misconduct in her doctoral thesis, preferential treatment of a construction company bidding to renovate the official presidential residence and stock manipulation involving a BMW car dealer.

In June, a woman not belonging to the presidential office, identified only by the surname Shin, arrived in Spain five days earlier than the president and first lady and returned to Korea aboard the presidential plane.

The costs of Shin’s trip to Spain were covered by the presidential office, which explained that Shin stayed at the same Madrid hotel as the presidential couple to help the first lady with her schedule. She also participated in planning an event hosted by the office.

Shin is the wife of Lee Won-mo, Yoon’s personnel secretary.

Kim also faces accusations that she committed plagiarism while writing her doctoral thesis and three other academic papers at Kookmin University, Seoul, where she earned a Ph.D in design in 2008.

An investigative committee at the university earlier this month cleared Kim of plagiarism after a months-long probe into her academic papers.

According to the school, the committee decided her doctoral dissertation and two other papers “constitute neither plagiarism nor research misconduct that seriously deviates from the range normally accepted in academic disciplines.”

The school added it was impossible to verify whether Kim had committed academic misconduct in the remaining paper.

The committee’s conclusion was met with widespread confusion over its meaning, as well as further suspicion that the university came under political pressure to clear the first lady of wrongdoing.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]