[Anchor]

Kim Seung-won, nominee for Minister of Justice who is facing suspicions of lobbying the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, previously explained that a photo of him taken together with a related broker was a chance encounter. In response, Independent Representative Han Dong-hoon fired back, calling it a "shameless lie" and arguing that a phone call transcript between the broker and nominee Kim contains different circumstances. Meanwhile, the People Power Party has raised suspicions that the time taken for a new drug's approval was shorter than average.

Reporter Bae Junu.

[Reporter]

This photo was taken on February 9, 2022, featuring nominee for Minister of Justice Kim Seung-won, a broker surnamed Yang, and a judge surnamed Jeong.

Yesterday (the 4th), nominee Kim's camp explained that the two men had "run into each other by chance" that day.

However, Independent Representative Han Dong-hoon posted details today on social media, claiming they were from a transcript of a phone conversation between nominee Kim and Yang that took place on the same day.

According to the claim, Yang, who received a call from nominee Kim at the time, asked, "I'll run over now, where are you?", to which nominee Kim replied, "Yeouido."

Yang then said, "I'm in Hanam and will arrive in an hour. I'll head out, so give me the address," and nominee Kim responded, "Alright, I'll be here," according to what Representative Han claims is in the transcript.

Representative Han blasted the explanation that they had bumped into each other by chance as a shameless lie.

In response, nominee Kim's camp changed its explanation, stating, "Relying on memory led to some shortcomings in our explanation," and adding that they "met rather abruptly."

Yesterday, nominee Kim's camp claimed that they had neither met nor contacted Yang since 2022, but an additional photo of nominee Kim taken together with Yang and others at an event in 2023 was subsequently released.

Regarding this as well, nominee Kim's camp changed its explanation, stating that nominee Kim had visited a constituency event venue and happened to run into Yang by chance.

Regarding the suspicion that nominee Kim lobbied the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to swiftly approve a clinical trial plan for a COVID-19 new drug, People Power Party Representative Han Ji-a raised suspicions that the time taken to approve the drug in question, "GenenCell," was 33 days, which is twice as fast as the average.

In response, nominee Kim's camp countered, "If we look only at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's review time excluding the time taken for companies to supplement materials, it was 11 days for GenenCell, which actually took longer than the average under the same criteria."

(Video Editing: Lee Seung-hee, Design: Kim Ye-ji, Kang Yoon-jung)