President Lee Jae-myung on the 23rd signaled a fact-finding probe and punishment, saying, "Public officials at investigative agencies, who must be more fair and impartial than anyone else, are mobilizing the public authority entrusted to them to maintain order and uphold social discipline to cover up conduct that anyone can see is clearly illegal, or to fabricate and create cases out of nothing, disrupting the national order and taking private gain." Although he did not mention a specific case, it appears he was pointing to the allegation raised at the recent National Assembly audits that the prosecution leadership pressured investigators to clear Coupang in a case over unpaid severance.
Presiding over a senior secretaries meeting at the Yongsan presidential office that afternoon, Lee said this was "an intolerable act of discipline breakdown that destroys democracy and the rule of law," adding, "We must thoroughly uncover the facts and handle and judge it sternly according to the law and principles."
Lee said, "The authority of not only investigative agencies but all public officials comes from the people, the sovereign, and it must be exercised fairly and justly only for the sovereign, under the sovereign's control and oversight," adding, "In particular, the public authority of officials at investigative agencies responsible for maintaining order is truly the last bastion, like salt, that preserves social order." He also said, "Acts that use the authority granted to maintain social discipline to destroy that discipline for private interests and to disrupt social order must never be tolerated."
Earlier, Moon Ji-seok, a Director General prosecutor at the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office, appeared as a witness at the Ministry of Employment and Labor audit by the National Assembly's Environment and Labor Committee on the 15th and revealed pressure from superiors to quash the Coupang case investigation. The crux of his claim is that early this year, when he was working at the Bucheon branch of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office, senior officials intentionally omitted key evidence in the Coupang case from a report to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, leading to a decision not to indict. His superior at the time was Eom Hee-jun, now a prosecutor at the Gwangju High Prosecutors' Office, who was then the Bucheon branch chief. Moon also appeared at the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee audit that day and claimed that Eom directed profanity and verbal abuse at him.