Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Mi-ae called for the withdrawal of Kim Ji-yong's nomination as head of the Major Crimes Investigation Agency, comparing him to a "collaborator" who enabled wrongdoing and to Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal.
In a post on her personal Facebook page on the 16th titled "The Banality of Evil and Major Crimes Investigation Agency Nominee Kim Ji-yong: Memory Redeems Us," Choo criticized the nominee's past conduct.
Choo took issue with an explanation Kim offered on the 14th regarding the case involving the travel ban imposed on former Vice Justice Minister Kim Hak-eui, in which Kim Ji-yong had been part of the chain of command. The nominee had said, "I clearly stated consistent views and opinions from beginning to end, but I was not in the position of final decision-maker." Choo responded that the remark "calls to mind Eichmann, who drove Hungarian Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz and then calmly said he had merely followed orders under Hitler's regime."
Choo also raised Kim's conduct during the 2020 Channel A case, when he served as deputy chief prosecutor at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office. She said that "the prosecutors originally in charge were lukewarm about indicting prosecutor Jung Jin-woong on charges of abuse of authority and assault, but the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office pushed the indictment through by switching who was in charge, and the nominee filed the indictment." She added that "prosecutor Jung was ultimately acquitted by the Supreme Court, but Yoon Suk-yeol and Han Dong-hoon, who obstructed the investigation into collusion between prosecutors and the press, were never indicted," saying she "simply regards him as a 'collaborator' who enabled wrongdoing."
She also argued that Kim bears responsibility for the collapse of a plan to use special activity funds for a forensic examination of former chief prosecutor Han Dong-hoon's iPhone, and for the case being closed without charges, during Kim's tenure as head of the criminal division at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office. She further noted that Kim's name appeared on a joint statement by senior prosecutors at the chief prosecutor level who objected to the suspension from duty and disciplinary action sought against Yoon Suk-yeol when he was prosecutor general.
Choo argued that "had the nominee exercised judgment according to the conscience befitting his office and fulfilled his responsibility to uphold judicial justice, Yoon Suk-yeol and Han Dong-hoon would have been punished under the law," adding that "Yoon Suk-yeol becoming president and Han Dong-hoon becoming justice minister would never have happened." She went on to stress that "for these reasons, the nomination of Kim Ji-yong as the first head of the Major Crimes Investigation Agency must be withdrawn."
