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Former Presidential Secretary for Public Relations Ahn Bong-geun (right) and former Presidential Secretary for General Affairs Lee Jae-man enter the courtroom in handcuffs at the Seoul Central District Court to begin their trial on charges of bribery and embezzlement of public funds on Nov. 2. (Yonhap News)

Lee Jae-man, a former Blue House general affairs secretary arrested on charges of accepting “special activity funds” from the National Intelligence Service (NIS), told prosecutors that he had taken the money “on orders from [ousted former President] Park Geun-hye.” He also claimed to have kept the money in a separate safe and used the funds at Park’s direction.

If true, this means the NIS budget was effectively used as a slush fund for Park Geun-hye. Park has continued maintaining her innocence on charges of involvement in government interference, claiming she “did not receive a single won [one-tenth of a cent].” The accusations suggest she manipulated the public coffers as well, secretly stashing state funds to tap into for her own spending needs.

It was highly unethical for these officials to accept and use separate NIS money when special activity funds are already clearly allocated in the Blue House budget. Yet, Park has continued to wage a battle from behind bars, proclaiming her prosecution “political revenge in the name of law and order” and talked about how the “truth will eventually come out.” The brazenness is staggering.

According to media reports, some 50 million won (US$45,000) a month was provided as an “NIS tribute” under Nam Jae-joon’s directorship of the agency from early in Park’s term until May 2014. When Lee Byung-kee took over as NIS director, the amount reportedly increased to 100 million won (US$90,000). Blue House Senior Secretaries to the President for Political Affairs Cho Yoon-sun and Hyun Ki-kwan also received separate amounts of 5 million won (US$4,500) a month from the NIS.

The agency reportedly delivered briefcases packed with 50,000-won bills to administration power brokers like Lee Jae-man and Ahn Bong-geun, only stopping last year when the government interference scandal broke and Ahn, then a public relations secretary, asked it not to send any more.

There are precedents, back during the days of authoritarian governments, of the Blue House accepting and spending special activity funds from intelligence agencies as “governance capital.” But the South Korean public believed all that was a thing of the past after revelations that the Blue House appropriated Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP) funds under the Kim Young-sam presidency. While there were cases after that of some NIS special activity funds being individually delivered to administration bigwigs, the idea of them being delivered on a regular basis to serve as a presidential slush fund is almost beyond belief.

Another potential time bomb has to do with how the money was spent. Reportedly, some 500 million won (US$449,900) in NIS money was used to pay for opinion polling on the Saenuri Party primary ahead of the general election on Apr. 13, 2016 – but no information has yet emerged on the fate of the estimated 4 billion won (US$3.6 million) or more in secret funds. It’s possible it was used for political or election purposes. This will require a thorough investigation.

Prosecutors had previously described Park and her confidante Choi Soon-sil as an “economic community,” but did not find out all the details. This time around, they need to learn the truth and get to the bottom of the Park Geun-hye slush fund.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]