Kim Seung-won Tears Up Explaining Family Suspicions; Democratic Party Applauds, People Power Party Dismisses as 'Crocodile Tears'

Kim Seung-won, nominee for Minister of Justice, shed tears while explaining suspicions regarding preferential treatment involving a cooperative where his spouse and son work during his National Assembly confirmation hearing today (15th).

The opposition party criticized this as "crocodile tears."

When pointed out that the cooperative was a "family cooperative" because his son works at the Korea Child Development Social Cooperative operated by his spouse, Nominee Kim explained, "The parents decide everything regarding the operations, my wife's salary, and working conditions. There are no returns or profits coming back to my wife."

Regarding his son, he refuted the claims, saying, "I feel both sorry and proud of him for accepting his mother's intentions and working to care for children with developmental disabilities. It was certainly not done to make money for profit."

During this process, he choked up twice and struggled to continue speaking.

Lawmakers from the ruling party sent applause of encouragement after Nominee Kim finished his remarks.

Lawmakers Kim Min-jeon and Kim Tae-gyu of the People Power Party showed a cold response, breaking into bitter smiles.

Lawmaker Kim Min-jeon also wrote "crocodile tears" on Facebook.

Meanwhile, independent Lawmaker Han Dong-hoon posted a recording on Facebook regarding suspicions of solicitation for new drug clinical trial approval, where Nominee Kim previously told a broker surnamed Yang, "I miss you so much that tears are coming out of my eyes." Posting it again, he asked, "Which tears are real? Are they the tears from February 9, 2022, when 'tears came out of your eyes because you missed room salon broker Yang'? Or today's tears?"

On the other hand, the ruling and opposition parties also clashed over the fact that the hearing was conducted without any witnesses or reference witnesses.

Lawmaker Park Hyung-soo of the People Power Party criticized, "The Democratic Party planned a hearing without a single witness, and the nominee is attempting a poor hearing by failing to submit data. We stated that around 10 witnesses, including broker Yang (suspected of drug solicitation), were necessary, but not a single one was adopted."

In response, Lawmaker Kim Eui-kyeom of the Democratic Party countered, "(The suspicion of solicitation) was thoroughly torn apart by the prosecution mobilizing 11 prosecutors for over two years. Having gone through a prosecution hearing 100 or 1,000 times harsher than a National Assembly hearing, adopting witnesses to turn this into a political offensive is too wasteful."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.