Lee Jun-seok, former leader of the People Power Party (PPP), spoke on the failed appointment of attorney Chung Sun-sin as chief of the National Office of Investigation following the controversy over his son’s school violence and expected it to be a critical factor for the government.

Lee appeared on the KBS radio show, Joo Jin-woo Live on March 1 and shared his view when the host asked, “Has the unsuccessful appointment of attorney Chung Sun-sin as chief of the National Office of Investigation become an important factor in the party convention?” Lee also said, “They changed the candidate verification system to better verify candidates, but the result was, as KBS reported before, that they did not verify the candidate, wasn’t it?”

The former PPP leader mentioned how a significant portion of the authority and responsibility related to candidate verification had been transferred to the Ministry of Justice and said, “This time, unfortunately, Han Dong-hoon will be a bit frustrated.” At the same time, Lee said that Han’s personal relationship with Chung Sun-sin, such as the two graduating in the same class at the Judicial Research and Training Institute, was highlighted. Lee said, “He (Minister Han) said he did not know about the alleged school violence,” and asked, “They failed to verify the candidate, and if Han says he didn’t know and the Office of the President says it didn’t know, then authority was granted, but who are we to hold responsible for the failure?”

Lee also spoke about Jang Ye-chan, a candidate representing young people running for the party’s Supreme Council in the party convention, and said, “People have been searching social media to find out what he thought in the past, and they’ve come up with all kinds of stuff.” He said, “In 2020, Jang even said, ‘The conservatives who once cursed Yoon Suk-yeol and Han Dong-hoon when they investigated the past government and now hail them as national heroes should be ashamed.’ But now, Jang’s election slogan is ‘Yoon Suk-yeol’s No. 1 Staff.’” Lee said, “He said they should be ashamed, yet he flipped his marketing strategy after three years and is promoting himself as Yoon Suk-yeol’s number one staff. He seems to be a different man.”

Lee Jun-seok also shared his thoughts about how Jang had responded to the criticism of a web fiction he wrote in the past. When Jang was criticized for sexually objectifying female celebrities, he said, “It’s not a problem because it’s 100% fiction.” Lee said, “Web fiction describes the form and erotic fiction describes the content. It was about writing erotic fiction in the form of web fiction.”