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People Power Party Leader Calls for Kim Yong-beom to Testify and Demands ETF Gate Investigation
🇰🇷 South Korea /Crime & Justice

People Power Party Leader Calls for Kim Yong-beom to Testify and Demands ETF Gate Investigation

From Dong-A Ilbo · () Korean

Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources New plan
  • Jang Dong-hyuk demanded that former presidential policy secretary Kim Yong-beom appear as a civilian witness at a parliamentary audit.
  • Jang alleged that lobbying by Mirae Asset may have influenced the push for single-stock leveraged ETFs and called for a parliamentary investigation and special counsel.
  • He also backed a special-counsel probe into the disappearance and death of a woman in Jeju, citing alleged misconduct in police case closures.

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk is demanding that former presidential policy secretary Kim Yong-beom appear before South Korea’s parliamentary audit and explain what he knows about the so-called ETF Gate allegations.

You must appear as a civilian witness and reveal the truth at the parliamentary audit.

— Jang Dong-hyukThe People Power Party leader demanded testimony from former presidential policy secretary Kim Yong-beom.

At a news conference in the National Assembly on Sept. 2, Jang suggested Kim may have resigned shortly before the regular parliamentary session to avoid appearing as an institutional witness. “You must appear as a civilian witness and reveal the truth at the parliamentary audit,” Jang said.

Jang pointed to Kim’s links with Mirae Asset Securities and to the employment of Financial Supervisory Service chief Lee Chan-jin’s son at the company. He alleged that Kim’s sudden resignation could be connected to suspicions that Mirae Asset lobbying had been exposed. Jang said investigators should examine whether the presidential office, the Office for Government Policy Coordination, the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service were involved in the policy process behind single-stock leveraged ETFs.

This is the Lee Jae-myung administration’s ETF Gate that must be clarified through an investigation.

— Jang Dong-hyukJang framed alleged lobbying in the leveraged ETF policy process as a major political scandal.

Calling the matter the “ETF Gate” of the Lee Jae-myung administration, Jang argued that Kim could not have caused such a major problem alone. He said the police were incompetent and the prosecution had been abolished, leaving a special counsel as the only option. The People Power Party, he said, would move quickly to pursue both a parliamentary investigation and a special-counsel inquiry.

The police are incompetent and the prosecution has been abolished. If so, a special counsel is the only answer.

— Jang Dong-hyukHe used the criticism to justify pursuing a special-counsel investigation.

Jang also called for a special-counsel investigation into the disappearance and death of a woman named Jang Mi-ran in Jeju. He cited 25 alleged false case closures involving a deputy police chief and criticized investigators for failing to examine the responsibility of the chain of command. He called for a fresh investigation into possible direct criminal conduct or involvement by the deputy chief, as well as the role of senior officers.

How can anyone trust the police with an investigation like this?

— Jang Dong-hyukHe criticized the handling of the Jeju disappearance and death case.
About this summary

Originally published by Dong-A Ilbo in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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