Simply brushing off the luxury handbag case

The state anti-corruption agency stoked a wave of criticism for its empty findings from a six-month-long review on a complaint filed against first lady Kim Keon Hee for receiving a luxury handbag from a suspicious pastor. It deliberated on the case after a civic group filed a complaint last December against the presidential couple and the Korean American pastor who gifted the bag and secretly taped the exchange.

Despite the lengthy time it spent on the issue, the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission announced that it was closing the case upon finding no legal grounds for the charges. This raises questions about whom and what the agency serves.

The agency said there was no clause in the Anti-Graft Act about punishing the spouse of a senior government official. It also closed its review on President Yoon Suk Yeol and the pastor after studying their relevance to the first lady’s acceptance of the bag in return for any favors. In closing the investigation, it looked into Article 14 of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act Enforcement Ordinance, but found “no additional new evidence other than those revealed to the media” and concluded that no further investigation was necessary on reasonable grounds.

The affair is an issue that can certainly implicate the president, but the agency omitted how it reached the assessment and merely announced that it was closing the case. An elementary school student could have written a better report.

The video of the first lady accepting a Dior bag costing around $2,200 shocked people after it was posted on the internet. It was a hot issue during the parliamentary election in April and is still under the prosecution’s investigation. Given the attention on the case, the agency should have tried to explore answers to various questions. The agency responsible for rooting out corruption in officialdom should have at least challenged the lack of legal grounds in the related law.

The agency announced its conclusion in a press briefing after the presidential couple left the country for state visits to Central Asia. It read out a 410-word statement and did not receive any questions from reporters. Its actions invite suspicion about trying to protect the presidential couple. The affair is now up to the prosecution. If its findings are as sloppy as the anti-corruption agency’s, it will provide strong grounds for the opposition party’s push for a special investigation.

The agency’s finding exposed serious loopholes in the anti-graft law. Grafts and bribes were often made through spouses and family members of political bigwigs. If there are no stipulations for their actions, solicitations through family members could be interpreted as being legal. Such absurd flaws in the law should be fixed immediately.