Suspicions only swell without clarifying them

The controversy over a recent memoir by former National Assembly speaker Kim Jin-pyo has not subsided. In the book released in June, Kim wrote, “In a one-on-one meeting with President Yoon Suk Yeol on Dec. 5, 2022, I recommended the president fire Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min for his responsibility for the deadly Itaewon disaster, but the president said he couldn’t make any decision.” Kim went on to say, “The president said he couldn’t rule out the possibility that the incident had been plotted — and manipulated later — by a certain force [in our society].” Kim also wrote that he couldn’t believe that a head of state could use such conspiracy theories often raised by far-right YouTubers in the country.

After the memoir had strong repercussions on political circles in particular, he stepped back and said, “I could see the president’s agony over the need to take into account all possible factors to find the truth behind the tragedy.” The former speaker added that he just wanted to relay deepening public concerns to the president about the possibility of unrefined information being delivered to Yoon. In response, the governing People Power Party (PPP) criticized Kim for “resorting to the hit-and-run strategy often used by the opposition.” Some PPP lawmakers wondered if the former head of the legislature just wanted to sell more of his books by making bombshell remarks.

It is unclear whether Kim wanted to say that the president opposed the idea of replacing the interior minister after believing a conspiracy theory — or whether he just wanted to share his impression that Yoon seemed to be being briefed about conservative YouTubers’ claims at that time.

If Kim had only relied on his memories, he should have been careful about the expression. To make matters worse, Kim exposed the details of his conversation with the president just less than one month after stepping down as the speaker. Why?

But the presidential office’s reaction is also strange. It regretted the former speaker’s “distortion of his conversation with the president in the meeting,” but didn’t specify what was wrong. That ambiguity only fuels public suspicions. In fact, many citizens don’t understand why the interior minister was not replaced at that time. If so, the president must pre-emptively clarify what conversation he really had with the speaker during the one-on-one meeting.

Looking back, President Yoon has been worsening his crises — from his wife’s suspicious acceptance of a luxury handbag from a mysterious pastor to the unfathomable death of a Marine — by dilly-dallying on clarifying them fast. If he loses public trust, he cannot win the hearts of the people no matter what he champions.