Did Kim Woong Falsely Deny... Partial Release of Call Recording with Jo Seong-eun

Kim Woong, member of the People Power Party. [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] A portion of a phone call recording that contradicts the previous explanation of Kim Woong, a key figure involved in the 'whistleblowing solicitation' allegations under investigation by the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Unit (Gong-su-cheo), has been released, causing a stir.

According to the legal community on the 6th, Gong-su-cheo is currently analyzing the phone call recordings between Representative Kim and whistleblower Jo Seong-eun, which were recently transferred from the prosecution along with the case.

The files reportedly contain conversations lasting about 7 to 8 minutes each, recorded just before and after Kim delivered the complaint to Jo on April 3 of last year.

The recordings reportedly include Kim telling Jo that "we will prepare the complaint" and instructing her to "submit it to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office." It is also said that Kim mentioned that if he personally went to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, it would appear as if he was sent by the prosecution, so he should stay out of it and instead submit the complaint through the party leadership.

Earlier, when the 'whistleblowing solicitation' allegations surfaced, Representative Kim stated, "I do not remember," and added, "If that were the case, I only passed on a public interest report."

He also explained, "As a party member, I immediately forwarded the materials I received to the party for review," and said, "Is it possible to review over 100 pages in a situation where I was running around from dawn at the election site?" implying he had no time to review the complaint.

However, with the release of the recordings showing relatively long phone conversations with Jo around the time the complaint was delivered, including specific discussions about submitting the complaint, there is growing weight to the possibility that Kim's explanations were false and inconsistent with the facts.

It remains unclear whether the prosecution conducted digital forensic analysis of the phone recordings between Kim and Jo before transferring the case and evidence to Gong-su-cheo, or if Gong-su-cheo itself performed the forensic work to analyze the file contents.

Regarding this, a Gong-su-cheo official stated, "We cannot confirm the status of forensic progress or investigation details related to the ongoing case."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.