The Truth Behind Texts Between Jeong Jin-seok and Yoo Sang-beom: "Sent on the 13th of Last Month"

"IJoonseok Seems Determined to Link the Emergency Committee and Ethics Committee Somehow"

Former Representative Lee Jun-seok's SNS regarding the photo article exposing text messages of Emergency Committee Chairman Jeong Jin-seok.
[Photo by Lee Jun-seok Facebook]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Ji-eun] Yusangbeom, a member of the People Power Party's Ethics Committee, sent a text message on the 13th of last month to Emergency Response Committee Chairman Jeong Jin-seok stating, "If the charge of sexual bribery is filed, I will raise it together for expulsion." At that time, Chairman Jeong was not in the position of Emergency Response Committee Chairman but was a regular member.

On the 19th, Chairman Jeong posted on his social network service (SNS), "Today, some media outlets took photos of my personal phone. They reported that I sent a text related to the Ethics Committee to Representative Yu, who is an ethics committee member, but this is completely untrue," he said.

He added, "The text message shown on my phone was sent by me to Representative Yu on August 13. On August 13, I was not the Emergency Response Committee Chairman but a regular member. I took on the role of Emergency Response Committee Chairman on September 7," he said.

August 13 was the day when former leader Lee held a press conference claiming that "President Yoon Seok-yeol called me 'this XX' and 'that XX,'" mentioning the phrase "Yangduguyuk" (a Korean idiom meaning "a dog’s head with a cow’s body"). Chairman Jeong said, "After watching that press conference, I was so shocked that I sent a text to Representative Yu, who is an ethics committee member of our party. The purpose was to warn that a former party leader who received a heavy disciplinary action is not showing remorse but instead is making indiscriminate abusive remarks and verbal attacks toward the party and party members."

At that time, Chairman Jeong, who was a regular member, sent a text mentioning the need for a "warning for the relevant act during heavy disciplinary action," and Representative Yu replied, "If the sexual bribery charge is filed, we should raise it together for expulsion."

Chairman Jeong said, "After my last text communication with Representative Yu, who is an ethics committee member, a month and six days passed before I sent a text message saying 'Let's have lunch together today.' I strongly regret that my personal text message sent at 8:25 p.m. over a month ago was carelessly photographed and, without verifying the exact facts, was reported as if it were a text from today with an unrelated article," he said.

This was a statement expressing regret over some media outlets photographing the content of the text messages exchanged between Chairman Jeong and Representative Yu and publishing articles on the morning of the 19th as if the conversation had taken place that day.

He also refuted former leader Lee’s SNS remarks. Former leader Lee said on his SNS about the "text leak" photo, "The ethics committee member and the emergency response committee chairman are discussing and instructing disciplinary actions while predicting the police investigation results. They do many unreasonable things, so they keep getting caught in photos like this."

However, according to Chairman Jeong’s explanation, he was not in the position of Emergency Response Committee Chairman when the texts were exchanged. Chairman Jeong said, "Sorry, Leader Lee. It seems Leader Lee wants to link the Emergency Response Committee and the Ethics Committee somehow, but I have never thought of exerting influence on the Ethics Committee’s decisions."

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