President Yoon Suk-yeol said on the 6th during his impeachment trial that he has never used the term 'personnel' while leaving out the word 'person.' This was a rebuttal to a statement made by former Special Warfare Commander Kwak Jong-geun, who claimed that on the day of the emergency martial law, President Yoon instructed him over the phone to 'pull out the personnel inside the National Assembly.'
On this day, former Commander Kwak appeared as a witness for the National Assembly's side in the Constitutional Court's impeachment trial. He testified that on the day of the emergency martial law, President Yoon called him and said to 'pull out the personnel inside the National Assembly.' However, he noted that President Yoon did not refer to 'members of the National Assembly' and that he understood it as such.
At the end of the witness examination of former Commander Kwak, President Yoon obtained the floor and spoke for eight minutes. He stated, 'Kwak is saying that when he said to "pull out a member," he understood it as being a "member," not that I did not use the word "member."'
He continued, 'In order to prevent the members from reaching a quorum, it is not a matter of pulling out one or two people; you need to pull out either 151 or 152 to stop the meeting. Knowing this situation well, it is common sense for a commander to say, "it is impossible with our troops." It doesn't align with his testimony that he was left pondering what to do in silence.'
He added, 'Looking at today's situation, it appears that this impeachment scheme began with the grants of Hong Jang-won (former first deputy chief of the National Intelligence Service) and Commander Kwak Jong-geun's appearance on Kim Byeong-joo TV on December 6.'
President Yoon said, 'I hope the justices will consider whether it is reasonable that a direct phone call was made to prevent a quorum with instructions to pull out personnel.'