On the 19th, People Power Party floor leader Song Eon-seok said, "We plan to immediately file criminal complaints over political schemes and the spreading of false information targeting Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae." He also said he would submit a request for a parliamentary investigation through the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.
At a floor countermeasures meeting at the National Assembly that day, Floor Leader Song criticized, "The scheme politics of Yeouido President Jeong Cheong-rae and the Democratic Party of Korea to pressure Chief Justice Cho to resign has gone beyond a bid to seize the judiciary and reached an appalling level that invites a crisis of the republic," adding, "They are brandishing unsubstantiated and unverified tips and misleading the public as if a grave crime had been exposed."
He said, "What they call a tip has been revealed to be nothing more than the voice of an individual spreading false information, something altered or created by artificial intelligence (AI), and it has nothing to do with Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae. Yet the Democratic Party has been amplifying and reproducing it, going on news programs and spouting the sophistry that a special prosecutor can just investigate," adding, "The idea of handing over the falsehoods and scheme politics they themselves spread to a special prosecutor tailored to their liking is an act that deceives the people and makes a mockery of judicial justice."
Floor Leader Song argued, "Representative Jeong, lawmakers Seo Young-kyo and Boo Seung-chan, and YouTuber Kim Eo-jun should be the first to be subject to the punitive damages system that the Democratic Party is pushing," and "they should be held liable for massive damages."
He went on, "On one side, they are shaking Chief Justice Cho to pressure the judiciary, and on the other, they are using their overwhelming majority of seats as a weapon to create unconstitutional laws that destroy the Constitution and the rule of law," adding, "The current president and the Democratic Party are ignoring the Constitution, setting up courts to their liking, and trying to assign cases investigated by a lapdog special prosecutor of their choosing to lapdog judges they selected."
By contrast, Democratic Party of Korea leader Jeong Cheong-rae said, "Internal criticism within the (court) and public distrust surrounding Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae are self-inflicted by Chief Justice Cho," adding, "We hope he will untie the knot he tied. We ask that he step down cleanly."
At the supreme council meeting that day, Representative Jeong noted, "If only the normal procedures had been followed for then-presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, there would have been no suspicion that the presidential candidate was swapped," adding, "If Chief Justice Cho had taken a firm stand against the illegal emergency martial law on 12/3 and had voiced an angry outcry at the time of the Western District Court riot, and if he had made his position clear when Judge Ji Gui-yeon released Yoon Suk-yeol, today's distrust of the judiciary would not exist."
Park Soo-hyun, the Democratic Party chief spokesperson, said, "Cho Hee-dae and Han Duck-soo deny the allegations, but if they have nothing to hide, they should cooperate with a special prosecutor and a parliamentary inquiry," adding, "Chief Justice Cho should, even now, express regret over having quashed and remanded President Lee Jae-myung's public official election law violation case."
When asked about "whether the recording related to the meeting with Cho Hee-dae is factual," Chief Spokesperson Park said, "I do not think that issue is the essence," adding, "We have no intention of responding to a battle over the truth."