President Yoon Suk-yeol noted that "using the story of telling former National Intelligence Service Vice Administrator Hong Jang-won to help the Counterintelligence Command, (former Vice Administrator Hong) claimed that the President ordered his arrest, creating a coup and impeachment plot."
On the 20th, President Yoon spoke for about 9 minutes after gaining the right to speak at the 10th hearing of his impeachment trial, during the examination of former Vice Administrator Hong.
President Yoon said regarding the call he made to former Vice Administrator Hong at around 10:58 p.m. on the day of the emergency martial law, "Do not just try to give all the information that the National Intelligence Service has about the espionage case to the police; the Counterintelligence Command has investigative capabilities, and the previous government reduced the number of personnel for Counterintelligence Command investigations, which hindered operations, so I told them to help."
He added, "(In that phone call, President Yoon told former Vice Administrator Hong) that ‘since former Vice Administrator Hong and former Counterintelligence Commander Yeo In-hyung are classmates from the Korean Military Academy, isn’t it?’ which is the most important point. Earlier, (former Vice Administrator Hong) lied about not hearing this, didn’t he?" It implies that President Yoon was urging them to collaborate well between agencies as former Vice Administrator Hong and former Commander Yeo would likely know each other well. However, on that day, former Vice Administrator Hong testified that he had no recollection of hearing such comments during the call with President Yoon on the day of the martial law.
President Yoon stated, "The key point is that in order to catch many spies, the (National Intelligence Service) conveyed the message to also support the Counterintelligence Command with information, and that was linked to the story of former Commander Yeo saying that the police found it difficult to confirm locations, wondering whether the National Intelligence Service could help with that, which was turned into the President's order for an arrest."