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Feb. 9. Won appeared at the court under the guard of a vanguard right-wing organization made up of ex-marines. They appreciated Won‘s contribution to election interference that benefited Park Geun-hye. (by Lee Jeong-a

“Sometimes I’d like it if even the spokespeople were given the freedom and right not to say things. A kind of ellipsis, if you will. . . .”

This was the response from a Blue House spokesperson at a briefing on Feb. 10 when asked to assess the verdict the day before against former National Intelligence Service director Won Sei-hoon. Won had been taken into custody after an appeals court found him guilty of violating the Public Official Election Act. It was a somewhat awkward statement of position from an individual spokesperson who was not at liberty to talk about the case, but it was also a reflection of the mood at the Blue House, which would prefer not to talk about the ruling at all.

But with the ruling now offering legal acknowledgement of the NIS’s interference in the 2012 presidential election, this silence from President Park Geun-hye and the Blue House - who had previously stressed the need for an “exhausting investigation and fair trial” - leaves them open to charges of irresponsibility as the head of an executive in charge of Constitutional government. Many are noting how much of a reversal it is for Park to keep quiet about the ruling now after her previous comments about the NIS allegations during the election campaign.

As a presidential candidate back in 2012, Park responded to the emergence of online comments by NIS agents as the biggest issue in the later stages of the election by arranging an emergency press conference five days before voting. “If the allegations about NIS messages prove to be falsehoods manufactured to influence the election, then [opposition candidate] Moon Jae-in should take responsibility,” she said at the time.

Meanwhile, her Saenuri Party (NFP) filed a complaint with prosecutors charging 11 opposition Democratic Party (precursor to today‘s New Politics Alliance for Democracy) lawmakers and others with disseminating falsehoods. “If there was a deliberate attempt to turn even an intelligence agency in charge of national security into a political tool to win the election for them, it is a national scandal that we cannot simply sit by and watch,” it declared.

Now that a court has confirmed that the “scandal” Moon was supposedly responsible for really was committed by a national intelligence agency, Park finds herself having to make some kind of statement.

Park dodged the interference issue after taking office, saying she had “never asked for it” and therefore bore no responsibility. As the issue kept dogging her through her first year, she finally declared at an Aug. 26 meeting of Blue House senior secretaries that she had “not received any assistance from the NIS or used it during the last election.” She appeared to have progressed on the issue by late October, when she said she had “never done anything personally that would warrant suspicions” and would “determine exactly what happened with the various allegations that are currently being tried and investigated in a way that conforms to the law and principle.”

But that was all. Right after the appellate ruling, a Blue House source said Park “has already stated the position that an exhaustive investigation and trial were necessary. What more of a response should there be?” The position seemed to be that a fair trial had produced a ruling, and that was the end of it.

For now, the Blue House appears to assume that the political fallout won’t continue now that a court has produced a ruling on the case. Internally, however, some Blue House observers are expressing concern that the issue, combined with recently political tumult and criticisms over staffing issues, could end up hurting approval ratings for the administration’s performance.

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent

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