(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporters Hwang Jae-ha, Lee Seung-yeon, and Choi Won-jeong = While controversy continues over the 'possibility of cancellation of the indictment' in President Lee Jae-myung's trial, when Lee Yong-cheol, a candidate for Minister of Justice, was nominated, attention was focused on the long relationship between the two.
According to the legal community on the 12th, candidate Lee Yong-cheol was a founding member of the law firm where President Lee worked in the past, served as a transition committee member when he was elected mayor of Seongnam, and later served as CEO of the Seongnam Industry Promotion Foundation (currently Seongnam Industry Promotion Agency), a public institution under Seongnam City.
Naturally, candidate Lee has a relationship with several people called 'Lee Jae-myung's people', and is accordingly classified as the 'Seongnam Line', a group of close associates of the president.
At the future confirmation hearing, the National Assembly is expected to intensively investigate the possibility of candidate Lee Yong-cheol leading the cancellation of President Lee's indictment if he becomes Minister of Justice, based on his history and personal connections.
◇ Saegil Law Firm, which produced key figures in the Democratic Party administration
Candidate Lee Yong-cheol and President Lee previously worked at Saegil Law Firm.
President Lee Jae-myung worked as a lawyer in Saegil just before being elected mayor of Seongnam in 2010, and during this time, he jointly took on a total of seven cases, including six civil cases and one administrative case, with candidate Lee Yong-cheol.
Saegil is a law firm launched in 2000 through the merger of Jeongil Law Firm and Pureun Joint Law Office. Candidate Lee, who was a member of Pureun Joint Law Firm, joined as a founding member.
Lawyers named as co-founding members include Lee Heung-rok, Lee Seok-beom, Lee Sang-ho, and Lee Hyun-yong, several of whom held important positions in the current or past Democratic Party administration.
The late Lee Heung-rok (1939-2021), a senior lawyer, previously worked as a human rights lawyer in Busan and served as a non-standing member of the National Human Rights Commission from 2003 to 2005 during the Roh Moo-hyun administration.
Attorney Lee Heung-rok was posthumously awarded the Magnolia Medal of the National Merit in June of this year in recognition of his contribution to the June 10 Democratic Uprising.
Attorney Seok-beom Lee (65, 22nd class of the Training Institute) was appointed as a member of the ‘People’s Sovereignty and Prosecution Normalization Special Committee’ launched in the early days of the Lee Jae-myung administration.
Attorney Seok-Beom Lee also served as a member of the National Intelligence Service Reform and Development Committee (2017-2018), a member of the Justice and Prosecution Reform Committee (2019-2020), and the Director of the National Intelligence Service's Office of Inspector General (2021-2022) during the Moon Jae-in administration.
Attorney Lee Sang-ho (60, 21st class) defended the case of illegal political funds received by Kim Yong, former vice president of the Korea Institute for Democracy, who is known to be a close associate of President Lee Jae-myung.
Former Vice President Yong Kim was found guilty of receiving bribes from private developers in Daejang-dong, was sentenced to five years in prison in the first and second trials, and is awaiting the Supreme Court's decision.
Attorney Lee Sang-ho served as Secretary General of the Korea Legal Aid Corporation under the Ministry of Justice from 2019 to 2021 during the Moon Jae-in administration, and was appointed as the 8th Chairman of the Government Legal Aid Corporation in June of this year.
Attorney Lee Hyeon-yong (60, 29th class) was an advisory lawyer for Seongnam City when President Lee Jae-myung was mayor of Seongnam. He defended several criminal cases against President Lee's associates and was appointed as Secretary General (executive director) of the Korea Legal Aid Corporation in July of this year.
He took on the case of Baek Jong-seon, who was President Lee's assistant during his time as mayor of Seongnam, assaulting a taxi driver in 2013, the case of Kim Byeong-wook, former lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Korea, who was the joint chairman of the presidential campaign office, violating the Public Official Election Act, and the case of Kim Hyun-ji, the first deputy director of the Presidential Secretariat, who violated the Public Official Election Act.
Among these, in the case of former lawmaker Kim Byeong-wook, former Democratic Party leader Jeong Jin-sang, known as a close associate of President Lee, was a co-defendant.
◇ President Lee has been associated with the ‘Seongnam Line’ since he was elected mayor of Seongnam.
Candidate Lee Yong-cheol began a full-fledged relationship with people from the ‘Seongnam Line’ in 2010, when he was President-elect Lee Jae-myung’s Seongnam mayor.
Candidate Lee participated as a member of the 'Citizen Happiness Committee', the Seongnam Mayor's transition committee at the time, and worked with Director Kim Hyun-ji and former Director Jeong Jin-sang, who were secretaries of the transition committee.
At the time, the transition committee was chaired by Lee Han-joo, special adviser to the President for policy in the Office of the President, who was known as President Lee Jae-myung's policy mentor for 40 years, and current UN Ambassador Cha Ji-hoon, who was the defense attorney for President Lee's violation of the Public Official Election Act, served as vice-chairman.
From July 2011 to April 2015, when candidate Lee Yong-cheol served as CEO of the Seongnam Industry Promotion Foundation, a public institution under Seongnam City, his various connections became even more deeply intertwined.
A representative connection during this period is former lawmaker Kim Byeong-wook, who joined the foundation as a director at a similar time as candidate Lee.
Former lawmaker Kim Byeong-wook led the election as chairman of the election campaign committee when President Lee Jae-myung was running for the Seongnam mayoral election in 2010, and was inaugurated as a foundation director the following year.
He served as a member of the Seongnam Bundang National Assembly in the 20s and 21s and was called the 'original pro-Myeong faction'.
During the Lee Jae-myung administration, he served as secretary for political affairs at the Blue House and ran for mayor of Seongnam in the June 3 local elections, but was defeated.
Representative Ahn Tae-jun of the Democratic Party, a representative pro-Myung faction figure, also served as a director of the foundation during the period when candidate Lee Yong-cheol was the CEO. He worked at the foundation for four years starting in July 2013.
At the end of 2023, when President Lee Jae-myung was the leader of the Democratic Party, Rep. Ahn served as the party leader's special adviser for political affairs and assisted him from a close distance.
In addition, people such as Go Byeong-yong and Kim Hong-cheol, who were in President Lee's Seongnam mayoral election camp, and Kim Si-jung, a former Seongnam city council member who initially tried to run as a Seongnam mayoral candidate but unified with President Lee, also worked with candidate Lee Yong-cheol at the foundation.
Lee Sang-ho, who worked under the pen name 'Mickey Rourke' in the 'Roh Moo-hyun Lovers' Association (Nosamo), served as a director of the foundation for two years from December 2010, and his period of service overlaps with candidate Lee. It is known that during the 2007 presidential election, Mr. Lee led the 'Jeongjongdeul' (people connected to Chung Dong-young), an outside organization of candidate Chung Dong-young, along with President Lee Jae-myung.
Meanwhile, according to reports submitted by the foundation to the Seongnam City Council, the number of foundation executives and employees increased from 49 in early 2011, just before candidate Lee took office, to 82 in early 2015, right after the candidate retired.
Immediately after candidate Lee took office, the foundation prepared an organizational reorganization plan to 'establish strategies to foster promising industries in each industrial district such as Wirye New Town and Daejang-dong' and promoted the establishment of industrial development strategies for Daejang-dong and Wirye New Town and the discovery of related projects.
The opposition party claims that candidate Lee is the “architect” of the Daejeon-dong development corruption, but the candidate maintains that he was not involved in the development project.
