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Former President Park Geun-hye and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong

The Blue House unexpectedly released documents on July 14 showing the Park Geun-hye administration (2013–16) used National Pension Service (NPS) voting authority to support Samsung’s management rights succession.

It also released documents showing evidence of involvement by the office of the Senior Secretary to the President for Civil Affairs in appointments at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the “enlistment” of conservative groups as allied forces. The revelations appear likely to influence trials currently under way for figures involved in the Park Geun-hye/Choi Sun-sil government interference scandal, including a judgment on whether bribery took place between Park and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

Blue House spokesperson Park Soo-hyun shared a portion of the documents during a briefing that afternoon.

“While we were reorganizing things in the senior civil affairs secretary’s office on July 7, we found documents produced by the preceding senior civil affairs secretary’s office in one of his cabinets,” he explained.

The roughly 300 documents discovered including materials for senior secretaries’ meetings between June 11, 2014, and June 24, 2015, along with materials on ministerial candidates and other personnel, examinations of issues such as NPS voting rights, and predicted local election results. The other documents besides the senior secretaries’ meeting materials were drafted between Mar. 2013 and June 2015.

In particular, Park mentioned a document titled “Examination of NPS Voting Authority,” which included a handwritten memo reading, “Samsung management rights succession → use as opportunity, determine what Samsung needs in management authority transfer, offer help where needed, find ways of encourage Samsung to contribute more to national economy, government has some power to influence resolution of issues faced by Samsung.”

“A document titled ‘Reorganization of Cultural Convergence Base for Soundness in Culture and Arts Communities’ included things like actively enlisting ‘healthy conservatives’ as allied troops for governance, examining major Culture Ministry officials, targeting all bureau and office directors for scrutiny, and analyzing appointments at the departments responsible for the Culture Ministry’s four major funds,” Park explained.

Also released was a document that appeared to be a handwritten memo by former Senior Secretary to the President for Civil Affairs Kim Young-han, which Park said included notes reading “urge thorough investigation into substitute driver complaint [about an opposition lawmaker’s violence toward a bereaved Sewol family] with Nambu [Prosecutors’ Office]” and “organize allied warriors in patriotic/right-wing groups outside Education Ministry.”

The discovery of the office’s document cache is fanning allegations that former Senior Secretary to the President for Civil Affairs Woo Byung-woo was involved both in the Samsung management rights succession and in the drafting of a culture and arts community blacklist. Woo was a Secretary for Civil Affairs between May 2014 and Jan. 2015 and Senior Secretary through Oct. 2016. He is currently being tried on charges of abuse of power and dereliction of duties for orchestrating the demotion of current Culture Ministry staffers and abetting Choi’s interference in governance. The Blue House transferred the original documents to the Presidential Archive and submitted copies to the Special Prosecutor that afternoon.

The Prosecutors and Special Prosecutor sustaining the public prosecution in the Park Geun-hye and Lee Jae-yong bribery trials welcomed the documents as potentially very helpful for their case. The documents released by the Blue House on July 14 had been the subject of fact inquiry requests through the court by the Special Prosecutor since the Lee trial began. At the time, the administration had not yet changed, and the Blue House responded that it had no related documents.

A source with Special Prosecutor seemed confident the bribery charges would be substantiated.

“It’s become a bit clear now that former President Park and the Blue House were resolved early on to help Samsung out with its management rights succession,” the source said.

A source with the Samsung Group said they were “totally unaware the previous administration had drafted such documents.”

“We don’t have anything to say,” the source said.

By Choi Hye-jung, Seo Young-ji, Lee Wan, staff reporters

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