Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon on the 5th rejected Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won's explanation that a February 2022 photograph showing him with a broker surnamed Yang and a judge handling arrest warrants was the result of a chance encounter, calling the account "a blatant lie." Yang is linked to allegations that Kim lobbied on behalf of a new drug approval. Writing on his Facebook page that day, Han asked whether Kim had really run into Yang "by chance" around February 2022, then released the contents of a Feb. 9, 2022, phone call between the nominee and the broker.
In the transcript Han released, Kim and Yang address each other as "older brother" and "younger sister." When Kim opened with, "How have you been? Oh my, I'm so happy to see you I could cry," Yang replied, "What should I do, should I rush over now? I'll come right now. Where are you?"
Kim answered, "Yeouido." Yang asked, "I'm in Hanam, so I'd get there in an hour. Is that all right?" Kim said, "Of course, of course." When Yang told him again that it would take an hour to reach Yeouido from Hanam, Kim appeared to hesitate, saying, "Just a moment... it's also the season for court personnel reshuffles." He then said, "I'll wait here."
In a second call that followed, Kim told Yang, "It's a shame if we only get 20 or 30 minutes." Yang replied, "It's not a shame. I'm on my way with a whole load of things, so just wait." On this point, Han raised a further question, asking what the "whole load of things" Kim received from the broker on the night of Feb. 9, 2022, had been.
Han also released a transcript from October 2021 in which Yang mentioned Kim during a call with another person. Yang said, "The one who clears licensing is Seung-won, my older brother. He talks to the head of the food and drug safety ministry, and today he even asked whether he should push the health and welfare ministry." She continued, "He always tells me to be his antenna, saying the political donations are only 5 million won, so talk about things that work out well for you. Whatever it is, you're the one who has to do well, because everything moves through you."
Han then attacked the nominee, saying, "I ask whether making a broker rich is what the Democratic Party calls a 'public interest petition.'" He added, "The Democratic Party — Kim Min-seok, Song Young-gil, Seo Young-kyo and others — is not responding that Kim Seung-won's older-brother lobbying 'is not true.' Their official line is that it was a public interest petition, that 'Han Dong-hoon, now that you're a lawmaker too, this is the petition and grievance work you ought to be doing' — in other words, 'it's true, but it was the right thing to do.'"
Han said, "The Democratic Party — Kim Min-seok, Song Young-gil, Seo Young-kyo and others — says it is true that he lobbied for approval of a poison to make his room-salon little sister rich but that it was the right thing to do, and President Lee Jae-myung nominated Kim Seung-won knowing all of this. They are a corrupt political force." He stressed that conservatives must be rebuilt and the whole thing overturned.
The Democratic Party of Korea that day dismissed the claims as a political offensive, saying, "The indiscriminate raising of allegations against nominee Kim has gone too far."
Kim Sung-hoe, the party's floor spokesperson, said in a written briefing that day, "The allegations the People Power Party is raising are nothing new. Prosecutors under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration investigated this matter across the board over a long period." He added, "Every available means was used, including search and seizure and summons for questioning, but in the end they failed to indict. Are they now going to deny the conclusion of the prosecution service they themselves directed?"
Kim, a former judge, received a suspended indictment in the case in December 2024. In February 2025 he filed a constitutional appeal, saying he felt "the bitter cruelty of political prosecutors."
