Vetting standards for Yoon’s Cabinet picks called into question

Posted on : 2022-04-19 17:57 KST Modified on : 2022-04-19 18:05 KST
Despite claims it is performing rigorous vetting of its nominees, Yoon’s transition team has overlooked alleged misconduct by numerous figures tapped to run the country’s ministries
President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol speaks at a policy roundtable held at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul on April 18. (pool photo)
President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol speaks at a policy roundtable held at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul on April 18. (pool photo)

Criticism is mounting over President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s Cabinet picks, as many of the nominees do not seem to be meeting the public’s standards.

Yoon’s team failed to filter out several ministerial candidates even after discovering they had obtained unfair privileges in connection to previous posts as well as other issues. Controversy is now mounting around Chung Ho-young, Yoon’s pick to lead the Ministry of Health and Welfare and his long-time friend of 40 years, whose vetting process was reportedly rushed.

According to the Hankyoreh’s coverage on Monday, the presidential transition committee's appointment vetting team consists of about 10 people dispatched from the prosecution service, the police, and the National Tax Service. Lawyer Joo Jin-woo, Yoon's closest aide, serves as the team’s leader.

Joo is known for his role in investigating the Ministry of Environment “blacklist” case as the head of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office 6th criminal division in 2019, when Yoon was the prosecutor general.

Yoon’s vetting team has emphasized that, in the process of checking the candidates’ backgrounds and suitability, rigorous verification procedures are conducted on whether or not that nominee had previously broken the law in any way. Furthermore, the 2017 revision of the Presidential Transition Act allows for Yoon’s transition committee to access the current government's personnel records and personnel management system.

However, despite claims of a comprehensive screening process, Chung had a rather different account of how the vetting process was carried out.

In an interview with the media, Chung said that he received a call from the transition committee two nights before the nomination and that he gave his consent for the personnel vetting process the day prior to his official nomination. If this is indeed the case, that means Yoon’s team vetted him for less than a day.

Regarding this issue, Han Duck-soo, Yoon’s nominee for prime minister, said, “We knew that there were some problems like this in the verification stage,” adding, “We did a first round of checks for everyone, but when we looked at the reputations of [nominees’] children, we did not believe it to be that serious.”

Controversy has also erupted around Lee Sang-min, Yoon’s pick to lead the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. Lee, who, like Yoon, attended Seoul's Chungam High School and Seoul National University’s law school, is facing criticism after it was revealed that his twentysomething son was hired at an affiliate of the company where he served as a non-executive director for four years.

The Democratic Party is also criticizing Yoon’s team for not conducting rigorous enough screening for Yoon’s closest associates.

Representatives Ko Min-jung and Min Hyung-bae, members of the Democratic Party’s task force for personnel hearings, referenced Joo at a briefing on Monday.

“The problems regarding the qualifications, morality and professionalism of the candidates are so serious that there are concerns that the president-elect may have announced his Cabinet list to the public without thorough verification while [only] consulting with his right-hand man.”

An official with Yoon’s transition committee told the Hankyoreh that the verification team is “shrouded in a veil, so communication is not possible, and information is not being shared.” The official said that the atmosphere in the transition committee is such that they “can’t even bring up talk of an exit strategy for Chung.”

Some point out that other candidates failed to be filtered out since the vetting team focused only on “illegal conduct.”

Kim Eun-hye, Yoon’s former spokeswoman, said on April 5 that while Yoon’s team was aware of the public controversy caused by Han Duck-soo’s high consulting fees, they decided to stick with him anyway as they see him as the best candidate to overcome the difficult situation the country is currently facing.

The problems with Yoon’s ministerial picks are indeed many.

There’s Han Duck-soo’s conflict of interest regarding him making a profit of 600 million won by renting a house to a foreign company when he was a high-ranking official.

Then there’s Kim In-chul, the nominee for deputy prime minister for social affairs and minister of education, who, besides having been investigated on an alleged charge of accounting fraud in 2020, also conducted a controversial survey of students to identify those with rich or powerful parents while serving as president of the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Kim also gave himself “permission” to serve as a non-executive director of Lotte Advanced Materials, a post that came with a salary of 115.66 million won.

Finally, Han Dong-hoon, Yoon’s nominee for justice minister, allegedly received 43% more in rent from his tenants after raising the price of their jeonse key money. These examples show how the controversies surrounding the nominations span across various candidates.

“Besides the legal aspects, screening cannot ignore public sentiment either, but this aspect seems to have been neglected,” an official from Yoon’s transition committee said.

Meanwhile, Yoon’s team acknowledged that they can’t confidently state that the vetting process is “perfect” or exactly what the public would want.

“However, we are doing our best to make a more detailed vetting [process] compared to previous transition committees,” it added.

By Seo Young-ji, staff reporter; Kim Mi-na, staff reporter

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

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