After former Gyeonggi Province Vice Governor for Peace Lee Hwa-young was sentenced to four months in prison for perjury over a "salmon drinking party," the opposition parties began criticizing President Lee Jae-myung and the ruling party in unison.
Shin Dong-wook, a People Power Party supreme council member, said at a supreme council meeting held at the National Assembly on the morning of the 22nd, "Regarding the court ruling that there was no salmon sashimi drinking party, we demand the Democratic Party of Korea's desperate self-reflection and an apology to the public," adding, "The salmon sashimi drinking party was a fabricated show and a nationwide fraud concocted by the Democratic Party at the Oct. 2024 National Assembly audit to defend President Lee Jae-myung."
Shin said, "It was used as kindling to open the way to cancel President Lee Jae-myung's indictment," and added, "Canceling President Lee Jae-myung's indictment has completely lost its basis, so that idea must be abandoned entirely."
Shin added, "This is generally how the Democratic Party operates," and "No one believes the claim of a Jo Hee-de–Han Duck-soo meeting, which was put forward as the pretext for judicial reform."
Supreme council member Kim Jae-won also said, "They held a National Assembly hearing based on false perjury, placed a prosecutor on indefinite suspension, and even rammed through a special prosecutor bill to nullify President Lee Jae-myung's trial itself," adding, "It was a political scheme that mobilized a liar to block President Lee Jae-myung's criminal trial, trampled investigative agencies by targeting them, and used the National Assembly's legislative power as a shield."
Kim called on Minister of Justice Jung Sung-ho to "immediately withdraw the suspension order issued based on testimony the court has confirmed to be false," adding, "When state power is normalized, Minister Jung must face stern punishment for abuse of authority."
Lee Jun-seok, leader of the Reform Party, also said, "The salmon drinking party was a lie, and it was a crime that fabricated something that never happened to deceive the National Assembly," adding, "This 'salmon drinking party' was the starting point that transformed the entire North Korea remittance trial into a 'fabricated indictment' and ultimately pushed through a 'special counsel to cancel the indictment.'"
Lee said, "If a person uses someone else's life as kindling to cover up their own crime, that alone disqualifies President Lee Jae-myung from being president." Lee also compared President Lee to former U.S. President Nixon.
Lee said, "What brought down President Nixon in the United States more than 50 years ago was not the crime of wiretapping, but the cover-up to conceal that crime," adding, "Nixon ordered that Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating him, be fired. Nixon fired the special counsel who investigated him, and in the end Nixon himself was fired."