The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) asked prosecutors to indict then Board of Audit and Inspection Chairperson Choi Jae-hae and then Secretary-General Yoo Byung-ho on charges of conducting an unlawful audit of then Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) Chairperson Jeon Hyun-hee (now a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker), who did not resign in the early days of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.
On the 6th, the CIO said it asked a prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to indict former Board of Audit and Inspection Chairperson Choi Jae-hae, former Board of Audit and Inspection Secretary-General Yoo Byung-ho, and six former Board of Audit and Inspection officials including a Deputy Minister, Deputy Minister, Director General, and Director on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of another's rights and damaging official electronic records. Former ACRC Deputy Minister for Planning and Coordination A was referred for indictment on charges of perjury before the National Assembly (violation of the Act on Testimony and Appraisal before the National Assembly).
The CIO's announcement of its investigation results comes a little over three years after the former chairperson filed a complaint against the Board of Audit and Inspection in Dec. 2022, saying it was a "targeted audit" to force her resignation. The targeted audit allegation was dismissed as no charges.
Earlier, the task force (TF) for reforming the operation of the Board of Audit and Inspection sent to the CIO the results of inspections conducted last November into matters including civil servant duty management at the ACRC.
The Board of Audit and Inspection launched this TF on Sept. 16 last year, three months after the launch of the Lee Jae-myung administration. It was a measure unveiled after criticism from the Democratic Party of Korea that the Board of Audit and Inspection had carried out political and targeted audits against the Moon Jae-in administration over issues such as the killing of a civil servant in the West Sea and alleged manipulation of real estate statistics during the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. At the time, the Board of Audit and Inspection said, "It is to look back on and correct the internal and external criticisms and issues that have been raised."
◇ Jeon Hyun-hee endured resignation pressure under the Yoon administration, finished her term, and left office… later returned as a ruling party lawmaker
One of the suspicions examined by the Board of Audit and Inspection's operation reform TF was the "unlawful audit of former ACRC Chairperson Jeon Hyun-hee." The former chairperson is a former Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker and was appointed ACRC chairperson in June 2020 during the Moon Jae-in administration. After the Yoon Suk-yeol administration was launched in May 2022, she faced pressure to resign but held on and left office on June 27, 2023, after completing her three-year term. She then ran in the 2024 general election in the Jung–Seongdong A district in Seoul and won.
The Board of Audit and Inspection's audit related to the former chairperson emerged during this process. Starting in Aug. 2022, the Board of Audit and Inspection looked into allegations related to the former chairperson and on June 9, 2023, released an audit report on "inspection of civil servant duty management." In the report, the Board of Audit and Inspection issued "cautions" on four matters, including the allegation that the former chairperson sought leniency for an employee accused of power abuse, and decided on "discipline" for one matter. Of the four cautions, three were "institutional cautions," and one caution was issued to the former chairperson.
No separate measures were taken regarding the allegations that the former chairperson failed to comply with commuting hours during the audit process, and that she improperly intervened in the process of drafting an ACRC press release about the legal interpretation related to preferential treatment for former Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae's son during his military service. However, the report stated that on 83 of 89 workdays (93.3%) at the Sejong Government Complex, the former chairperson arrived after 9 a.m., the official start time for civil servants.
◇ The Board of Audit and Inspection conducted an audit into the "audit related to Jeon Hyun-hee" after the launch of the Lee administration
In connection with this, on Nov. 20 last year the Board of Audit and Inspection said, "The ACRC audit conducted during former Secretary-General Yoo Byung-ho's tenure was found to have illegal and improper acts throughout the process, from initiation to handling and implementation."
According to the TF's investigation, unlike usual audit procedures, the Board of Audit and Inspection began a field audit in an unusual manner. It did not go through the period for collecting materials (within 30 days) to confirm the facts of the tip-off, and after deciding to commence the field audit, it looked for content to audit.
Issues were also confirmed regarding the suspicion that when Commissioner Cho Eun-suk (special prosecutor for insurrection) in charge opposed the audit content, the Board of Audit and Inspection's secretariat "bypassed" Cho's viewing approval.
According to the TF, when an electronic document report is submitted for approval, the "view button" that is generated is clicked by the presiding commissioner to indicate that "view approval" has been completed. However, when the ACRC audit report was released, there was computer manipulation, including deleting the presiding commissioner from the approval line. As a result, the presiding commissioner was unable to view the audit report for about 20 minutes before and after approval.
◇ During the audit related to Jeon Hyun-hee, Cho Eun-suk, the special prosecutor for insurrection, was the presiding audit commissioner
According to the CIO's investigation, former Chairperson Choi Jae-hae and former Secretary-General Yoo Byung-ho conspired with four members of the Board of Audit and Inspection's secretariat in June 2023 to finalize the former chairperson's audit report without the commissioners' deliberation or the presiding commissioner's viewing approval. In the process, they had an employee of a computer maintenance company delete approval-related databases so the presiding audit commissioner could not approve.
Most of these details had already come to light through the National Assembly's investigation and the Constitutional Court's impeachment trial of the former chairperson Choi. In the impeachment trial, the Constitutional Court held that manipulating the Board of Audit and Inspection's computer system in disregard of the Board of Audit and Inspection Act and related rules was unlawful, but did not find abuse of power, accepting the argument that the manipulation was an unavoidable measure to prevent the presiding audit commissioner (Cho Eun-suk, special prosecutor for insurrection) from delaying implementation. In March last year, the court unanimously dismissed the impeachment against the former chairperson Choi.
However, the CIO said this investigation additionally confirmed that, beyond infringing on the presiding audit commissioner's approval authority, the commissioners' authority to deliberate and finalize was also infringed. A CIO official said, "This is a serious public office crime case that undermined public trust in audit results."
◇ Former chairperson Choi Jae-hae was appointed under the Moon administration… Yoo Byung-ho requested an investigation into the closure of the Wolseong nuclear reactor
Choi Jae-hae, the former Board of Audit and Inspection chairperson for whom the CIO requested indictment by prosecutors, was appointed in Nov. 2021 after former Chairperson Choi Jae-hyung resigned during his term to run for president under the Moon Jae-in administration, and left office in Nov. 2024. He was the first Board of Audit and Inspection chairperson to come from within the organization.
Former Board of Audit and Inspection Secretary-General Yoo Byung-ho was appointed in June 2022. During the Moon Jae-in administration, the Board of Audit and Inspection audited the problems with the "early closure of Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1" and referred civil servants involved in manipulating the economic feasibility assessment to the prosecution. He stepped down as secretary-general in Feb. 2024 and is currently serving as a Board of Audit and Inspection commissioner.