- Clash between Insurrection and Comprehensive Special Counsel? Due to handling the same case
- Clashes in five areas of discussion lead to emotional warfare between special counsels
- Conflict sparked after Comprehensive Special Counsel indicts Col. Cho Sung-hyun, whom Insurrection Special Counsel did not charge
- Comprehensive Special Counsel reviews additional military mutiny charges beyond insurrection
- Insurrection Special Counsel voices concern that charges could be dismissed due to double jeopardy
- Comparing arrest warrant rejection rates: Comprehensive Special Counsel shows higher rate
- Conflict highlights concerns over making special counsels permanent
- Making special counsel permanent contradicts push to separate investigation and indictment
- Case of Senior Police Officer Boo in Jeju? Highlights lack of oversight system after police conclusion
- Victimless crimes like bribery are more vulnerable to being buried without investigation

■ Broadcast: SBS Kim Tae-hyun's Political Show (FM 103.5 MHz 7:00 AM – 9:00 AM)
■ Date: Friday, August 28, 2026
■ Host: Attorney Kim Tae-hyun
■ Guest: Lim Chan-jong, SBS Legal Affairs Reporter

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Notes from the field covered by a legal affairs reporter running across Seocho-dong. The man who lives with the law. We are joined by SBS legal affairs reporter Lim Chan-jong. Hello.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Hello.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: We are going to wrap up this week's legal issues. What issues did you bring today?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Today, I have prepared about three issues, but I am not sure if we will have time to cover all three.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: For some reason, I feel like we might be able to do two.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Let us go through them one by one.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: First, here is this one. In all my life, conflicts between the ruling party and the presidential office, conflicts between the prosecution and the police, and conflicts between ruling and opposition parties are things we discuss all the time. But this is the first time in my life I have seen a "special counsel versus special counsel conflict."

▶ Lim Chan-jong: "Special-on-special conflict" is a term I coined. People are using it everywhere, so I feel the need to clarify that.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Like "Special-on-Special Conflict by Lim Chan-jong"?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes. It is a name I coined.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Which special counsel and which special counsel?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: The Insurrection Special Counsel and the Comprehensive Special Counsel are quite unprecedented. It is not just a quiet disagreement handled through official documents behind closed doors; they are openly showing their differences through the media. In that sense, it is a very unusual situation.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: The other conflicts I mentioned earlier look different on the surface, so one can understand why there is friction. But from the outside, both the Insurrection Special Counsel and the Comprehensive Special Counsel look essentially the same. Why are they fighting?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: As I will explain later, the situation itself is very unusual. A special counsel is temporary and handles a strictly limited scope of cases, so there has never been a situation where two different special counsels handle the same case. In a way, this is the first time such a situation has arisen since the introduction of the special counsel system.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Shouldn't it have ended after the three major special counsels?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Originally, after the three major special counsels, the customary and standard procedure was to transfer the remaining cases to existing permanent investigative agencies such as the police or the prosecution. However, because a new special counsel was created to continue handling the same cases, differences in opinion emerged between the original special counsel that handled the initial investigation and indictment and the subsequent special counsel taking it over. This also ties into maintaining the prosecution in court, and as it has escalated somewhat into an emotional dispute, the conflict has come to the surface.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: The three major special counsels were on the insurrection, Kim Keon-hee, and Marine Corporal Chae. And the Comprehensive Special Counsel was meant to handle what was left unfinished, right?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: That is right.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Among the three, the Insurrection Special Counsel is now clashing with the Comprehensive Special Counsel. Is that Special Counsel Cho Eun-seok and Special Counsel Kwon Chang-young?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes, Special Counsel Kwon Chang-young.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: In which areas are they clashing? Second Comprehensive Special Counsel Kwon Chang-young recently announced investigation results. Where are the points of friction with Insurrection Special Counsel Cho Eun-seok?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: We can point to roughly five major areas. Five is quite a lot. These are five points where they have either clashed and resolved it, or are still disputing. First is whether to indict Colonel Cho Sung-hyun, former commander of the Capital Defense Command's 1st Security Brigade, who is widely known for the incident involving the turnaround at Sogang Bridge. The Insurrection Special Counsel did not indict him, but the Comprehensive Special Counsel did. That is one issue.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Right.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Then there are disagreements regarding the indictment of former Prosecutor General Shim Woo-jung. There is also a division of opinion over when the insurrection is considered to have ended. Another issue is whether the Insurrection Special Counsel can transfer the portion of the case involving former Justice Minister Park Sung-jae, which was dismissed by the court, to the Comprehensive Special Counsel.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Lastly, this was something the Comprehensive Special Counsel reviewed and then dropped: whether charges of military mutiny under the Military Criminal Act, in addition to insurrection, could be applied to former President Yoon Suk Yeol. There was disagreement on this as well.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: An investigator's personal tendencies or style can affect the investigation. We have talked a lot about Insurrection Special Counsel Cho Eun-seok before. But Special Counsel Kwon Chang-young was someone not many paid attention to because interest in the Comprehensive Special Counsel had waned. Now that he is clashing with the Insurrection Special Counsel, people are wondering what kind of person he is. I also looked him up a few days ago to see if he was a former prosecutor or judge.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Special Counsel Cho Eun-seok was already quite well known during his time as a prosecutor.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: He was well known.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: I did not know Special Counsel Kwon Chang-young personally either, so I looked him up, and looking at his Namuwiki page seems to provide the clearest picture of him.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Namuwiki.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: If you look at Namuwiki, you can get a sense of his style. Viewers can search for it directly. It is organized in tremendous detail. I have rarely seen an entry for a specific individual that details year by year what papers he wrote and which academic conferences he attended, complete with systematically organized photos.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Even photos are organized?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes. Several photos are included. Seeing that...

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Glancing at it, I saw a photo of him wearing judicial robes.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes. It looks like someone with a deep interest or affection for Special Counsel Kwon Chang-young compiled it.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Really?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Reading it gave me a strong sense of his character.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: In conservative circles, a newspaper column headline even argued that he is doing politics rather than investigating. Let us look at a few points where Special Counsel Kwon Chang-young and Special Counsel Cho Eun-seok officially clash. The legal judgments will ultimately be decided in court, but the first public clash was this: Colonel Cho Sung-hyun, former commander of the 1st Security Brigade, is known as the person who ordered troops to turn around at Sogang Bridge.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: From the perspective of Special Counsel Cho Eun-seok, there is no need to indict him, and he could be someone who provides very favorable testimony for the Insurrection Special Counsel.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: That is what he has been doing all along.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Right?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: But the Comprehensive Special Counsel indicted him. Why is that?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: We need to define the criteria for determining accomplices or those engaged in key missions of an insurrection. In this case, the emergency martial law was imposed unlawfully, making it an insurrection. Public officials who played key roles during the emergency martial law could potentially be subject to investigation for insurrection.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Of course.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Where is the line between guilt and innocence? Ultimately, from the moment a person recognizes that the emergency martial law is unlawful, if they continue to obey orders and carry out key duties, they become an accomplice to insurrection. In the rulings regarding former President Yoon Suk Yeol and other cases, the established standard is that once someone recognizes the martial law as unconstitutional and unlawful, continuing to comply makes them a potential accomplice.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: The question is when that moment is deemed to have occurred. Rulings have generally established that the moment one becomes aware of troops being deployed to the National Assembly—as in the case of former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo—one should have recognized it as an unlawful, unconstitutional martial law. Continuing duties related to martial law after knowing troops were deployed to parliament is likely to make one an accomplice. By this standard, because Colonel Cho Sung-hyun continued carrying out military duties after knowing troops were deployed to the National Assembly, an unlawful state existed.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Right.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: The Insurrection Special Counsel's view is that shortly thereafter, when his superior, former Capital Defense Commander Lee Jin-woo, ordered him to drag lawmakers out, Colonel Cho considered it clearly unlawful, refused to comply, responded passively, or engaged in sabotage, thereby contributing to the failure of the emergency martial law's objective. Therefore, he should not be indicted.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Because he did not send troops in.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: The Comprehensive Special Counsel's logic, however, is that he should have recognized the illegality from the outset when troops were deployed. Furthermore, they argue that additional investigations showed claims about the Sogang Bridge turnaround were exaggerated, and that he actually gave orders that appeared cooperative, such as securing an exit path when special forces were bringing lawmakers out. Therefore, they argue he must be indicted.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: I see. And recently, didn't the Insurrection Special Counsel send an official document to the Comprehensive Special Counsel?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: It was not public; it was exchanged internally between them.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Asking them not to apply military mutiny charges. What was that about?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Former President Yoon Suk Yeol and related military figures have already been indicted for insurrection. However, the Second Comprehensive Special Counsel reviewed adding military mutiny charges against former President Yoon and others, and even conducted questioning.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Mutiny under the Military Criminal Act?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes. The Insurrection Special Counsel strongly objected, arguing that this would constitute double indictment for the same act, which could lead to a dismissal of the prosecution.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Adding military mutiny charges to a case already indicted for insurrection for the same act.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Because it is the exact same conduct.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Then it would be double jeopardy.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: In addition, the Insurrection Special Counsel cited precedents stating that when military personnel mobilize under orders from the commander-in-chief and commit insurrection, only insurrection charges apply, not mutiny.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Precedent states that?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Because it was ordered by the commander-in-chief.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Right. Mutiny means defying the commander-in-chief.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes. They argued it was an unreasonable stretch. Ultimately, after differing opinions, the Comprehensive Special Counsel dropped it, concluding that mutiny charges would not work.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: But did the Insurrection Special Counsel send an official document?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Reports indicated that the Insurrection Special Counsel sent an official letter before the idea was dropped. I have not seen the document personally.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: According to reports, the Insurrection Special Counsel used very strong language.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Special Counsel Cho Eun-seok is a formidable figure, not someone known for using mild language.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Really?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Yes.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Looking at the teams, which team appears more capable in investigative strength?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: That is difficult to judge objectively.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Is it?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: However, while the arrest warrant rejection rate is not an absolute indicator of investigative performance, it offers a statistical comparison. As of 2024, the overall arrest warrant rejection rate for criminal cases stood at 22.9%.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: 22%.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Among warrants requested directly by prosecutors rather than police between 2020 and 2024, the rejection rate was 28%. Among the three major special counsels, the Kim Keon-hee Special Counsel had a rejection rate of 31%.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: The Insurrection Special Counsel had a rejection rate of 42.8%, which is already quite high compared to standard prosecution rates. But for the Comprehensive Special Counsel, what do you think it was?

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Over 50%?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: It was 64.7%. That is considerably high. While this alone does not define investigative competence, it provides a statistical basis for comparison.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Both special counsels are state bodies funded by taxpayers. Is there no problem when they clash like this?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: This brings up the issue of making special counsels permanent. As you mentioned, it creates an inherent problem. Imagine the National Tax Service conducting a tax audit on Attorney Kim Tae-hyun and saying, "You paid your taxes properly; there is nothing more to pay." But then a "Comprehensive National Tax Service" comes in and audits you again, saying, "You need to pay more taxes." That would be absurd.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: That would be shocking.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: To the public, they are all state agencies. It is anomalous for state agencies to reach conflicting conclusions. As I mentioned earlier, a special counsel is meant to be an extraordinary measure handling a strictly limited scope of cases for a limited period.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: It was expanded too much?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Extending them for so long and assigning the same case to different special counsels led to this situation. This also ties into the current administration's major prosecution reform initiative: the separation of investigation and indictment. A special counsel fundamentally combines both functions.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: That is true.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Pushing to abolish the prosecution's investigative powers under that principle while institutionalizing a permanent special counsel system seems contradictory.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Understood. Let us look at the case involving Senior Police Officer Boo in Jeju. This was related to searching for a missing person, not a criminal investigation. Strictly speaking, it is not directly related to retaining or abolishing supplementary investigative authority, since it occurred before the investigation stage.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: That is correct.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Why do the media and the opposition keep raising concerns that abolishing supplementary investigative authority will lead to bigger problems?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Some also mention the prosecutorial authority to direct police investigations, which was abolished in 2021. As you pointed out, neither supplementary investigation authority nor investigative direction authority is directly linked to this incident.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: There is no direct link.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: A case must become a criminal matter and be forwarded to the prosecution before supplementary investigations can occur, and investigative direction prior to 2021 also applied only to criminal cases. However, when investigative direction was abolished in 2021, the police were given the authority to conclude criminal cases independently. Supplementary investigations provided an opportunity to check whether the police conducted a proper investigation after referring a case for indictment.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: On forwarded cases.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: On forwarded cases. Seeing how poorly this missing person case was handled when the police had the authority to close it independently, people are questioning whether the police should be entrusted with closing criminal cases on their own. That is why the issue of supplementary investigations and investigative direction is being brought up.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: In the end, it comes down to whether it is appropriate to let the police handle cases entirely on their own without external cross-checks or supervision.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Exactly.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Another issue highlighted by this case is the burying of cases by the police—closing them without proper oversight. In your reporter's notebook, you wrote that burying victimless crimes poses an even greater risk. What does that mean?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: With the separation of investigation and indictment and the removal of prosecutorial direction, legal intervention at the investigative stage has disappeared. In this recent case, the victim's family repeatedly requested missing person reports and engaged with the media, bringing the issue to light. When systems change like this, the response capability of victims significantly influences criminal outcomes, making it very difficult for vulnerable social groups who lack such resources. Acknowledging this, the Democratic Party introduced a supplementary measure allowing all cases involving seven major categories of crimes against socially vulnerable groups to be forwarded to prosecutors.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: What is even more problematic are cases with no individual victims—where the victim is the state or society. Examples include bribery, violations of the Political Funds Act, election law violations, and espionage. In such cases, there is no direct victim to push back. If these cases are buried, nobody finds out.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: If they sweep it under the rug?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: If they sweep it under the rug.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Like drug offenses, if they cover them up, nobody knows.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Right. Because the state is the victim, if it is covered up, no one notices. Because no specific individual suffers direct harm, the damage accumulates quietly and rarely comes to light until severe fallout occurs. By the time it passes a critical threshold and the public notices, the situation is often irreversible. I highlighted that concern in my report.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: Understood. As expected, three issues were too much to cover. The Supreme Court justice issue might be settled somewhat by your next appearance.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Will it? I am not so sure.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: No? Will it continue until the Chief Justice's term ends?

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Not necessarily, but if you are curious, you can tune in during my next appearance.

▷ Kim Tae-hyun: We will save the Supreme Court justice recommendation issue for next time. That is all for today. This was SBS Legal Affairs Reporter Lim Chan-jong. Thank you.

▶ Lim Chan-jong: Thank you.

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