President Lee Jae-myung demanded a public apology, directly mentioning the SBS program Unanswered Questions in connection with the "alleged gangster ties" raised during the 20th presidential campaign. On the 20th in the morning, Lee wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "I wonder whether Unanswered Questions, which created the 'Lee Jae-myung alleged gangster ties,' will obediently run a follow-up report, and if so, what it will report."
The previous day, Cheong Wa Dae said it would exercise the right to request follow-up reports against all media outlets that reported the "alleged gangster ties." The allegation was raised in Oct. 2021 by figures from the People Power Party based on statements by Park Cheol-min, an enforcer of the Seongnam crime organization International Mafia, and claims that Lee received 2 billion won in return for giving preferential treatment to the International Mafia while serving as Seongnam mayor.
In connection with this, attorney Jang Young-ha, who had been Park's legal representative, was indicted for "publishing false information under the Public Official Election Act" following a funding application by the Democratic Party of Korea, and on the 12th the Supreme Court finalized a guilty verdict. Based on the Supreme Court's final ruling, Cheong Wa Dae is demanding that the media re-post both the past reports that conveyed the fact that the allegation was raised at the time and the fact of the guilty verdict.
Lee said, "Thanks to the producer's miraculous logic on Unanswered Questions and Kim Sang-joong's realistic acting, I was suddenly driven as far as being a murder gangster," adding, "This broadcast appears to be one of the operations mobilized to eliminate me—physical terror, fabricated judicial risks through prosecutors, and an image-smearing campaign through the media." He also said, "They said they were making a follow-up program and scoured every corner of Seongnam; if there had been even a speck of grounds, there's no way they wouldn't have done a follow-up report."
He continued, "To prevent a recurrence of burying a person in a grave of lies for political purposes, reflection and an apology are needed from the People Power Party, which staged the fabricated exposé, and from fabricated broadcasts like Unanswered Questions," adding, "It may be too much to ask, but I want to hear one sincere word of apology."