The People Power Party criticized the end of Kwon Chang-young's second comprehensive special counsel probe, calling it "a special counsel that ended with a shoddy investigation and a hunt for the opposition, a blatant political operation wearing the mask of the rule of law."
Chief spokesperson Park Sung-hoon said in a commentary on the 24th, "The second comprehensive special counsel probe, which poured an enormous amount of taxpayers' money over 180 days, has ended disgracefully, leaving only a shabby report card of a 'last-minute mass indictment to pad results,'" adding, "In the final two weeks, the special counsel team indicted about 40 people, most of whom had their arrest warrants rejected by the court. They even bulked up their staff by additionally recruiting dispatched prosecutors and trial-maintenance attorneys under the pretext of responding to the investigation, but the results are nothing short of embarrassing compared with the much-hyped 180 days."
He further criticized it as "a clear case of politically targeted investigation" to have "indicted four opposition lawmakers in a sweep over a matter that did not even involve physical clashes with investigative authorities."
Park said, "What is even more infuriating is the special counsel's privileges and budget-squandering behavior hidden behind this empty, resultless investigation," noting, "According to reports, in the first half of this year alone, the five special counsel teams were allocated as much as a little over 3.3 billion won just in special operation expenses, an amount that exceeds the prosecution's entire annual special operation expenses. Calculated per head, the special counsel teams took special operation expenses 20 times larger than the prosecution."
He emphasized, "The results were paltry but the budget was extravagant, they had nothing on the core suspicions but moved at lightning speed to indict the opposition," adding, "The special counsel's conduct—stuffing themselves with preferential budgets while being obsessed only with hunting the opposition—cannot escape public criticism as political investigations to shield the administration and a waste of taxpayers' money."
People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jong-bae also issued a commentary, saying, "From the outset, the Lee Jae-myung administration tried to fabricate crimes through political retaliation, and despite mobilizing all the capabilities of the investigative authorities, it failed to prove the allegations," adding, "Nevertheless, Special Counsel Kwon Chang-young is insisting that a joint investigative body should be run as a permanent organization instead of apologizing for the overreaching investigation."
Lee said, "An extralegal body leads to extralegal dictatorship. The public will no longer tolerate an all-powerful special counsel," adding, "The Lee Jae-myung administration should apologize for the overreaching investigation and political retaliation of the second comprehensive special counsel."