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Han Dong-hoon, the nominee to lead the Ministry of Justice, listens to questions from lawmakers during his confirmation hearing on May 9. (pool photo)

Justice minister nominee Han Dong-hoon stated Sunday that he “has been subjected to obsessive attention verging on madness and all kinds of lynching just for investigating [people on the side of his attackers].” He added that “he fought, armed with fact and common sense, uncovering the falsehood and the true nature [of attacks against him] as a result.”

On Sunday afternoon, Han uploaded a one-page post to ePROS, the internal bulletin board of the prosecution service, in which he announced that he had submitted his letter of resignation. In order to be sworn in as justice minister, a political office, Han has to end his tenure at the prosecution service.

President Yoon Suk-yeol has requested that the National Assembly resend him the progress report for Han’s confirmation hearing by Monday. If the National Assembly doesn’t comply, Yoon may appoint Han without its approval. Han seems to have announced his resignation to members of the prosecution service in case Yoon decides to push ahead with his appointment.

In his statement, Han wrote about his track record as a prosecutor, stating, “I wanted to come up with answers that corresponded with justice and common sense. The more powerful [the subjects of my investigations] were, and the more they were equipped with political and economic power, the more I thought about [justice and common sense] while disregarding everything else. I’ve never been swayed by outside pressure or personal favors, constant variables in such cases.”

He added, “Thanks to this, I was frequently called rude from early on in my career as a prosecutor, but once I became ‘that kid who doesn’t budge [and] that kid who never comes out for drinks,’ it became somewhat easier for me to do my job.”

Han, who collaborated with Yoon while he was head of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, and took initiative to investigate corruption during the early days of the Moon Jae-in administration, described his experience of being demoted and becoming the subject of investigations after the Cho Kuk incident with emotionally charged words like “madness” and “lynching.” He wrote, “Even as I was pummeled, I felt calm and as if I could egg [my attackers] on to do whatever they wanted, as I had nothing to hide. I mustered up my strength by thinking about the wrongs the vulnerable would be subjected to, considering what the powerful were doing to me.”

In his post, Han did not provide an explanation about allegations that his daughter padded her resume, which surfaced during his confirmation process at the National Assembly.

A graduate of Seoul National University’s law school, Han is one of Yoon’s closest aides and a prosecutor who specialized in special crimes, including influence-peddling and investigations into large corporations, for most of his career. During the influence-peddling scandal involving former President Park Geun-hye and Choi Soon-sil in 2016, Han worked together with Yoon, who was the lead investigator of the special prosecution team for the case, to arrest and charge Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

Additionally, after Yoon was selected to head the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in 2017, Han assisted Yoon as the office’s third deputy chief prosecutor, going on to arrest and charge former President Lee Myung-bak as well as former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Yang Sung-tae.

When Yoon became prosecutor general, Han again assisted Yoon from a close distance by serving as the head of the anti-corruption and violent crime department of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, which oversees special investigations by prosecutors. Han was investigated for his potential involvement in a case of attempted coercion against a Channel A reporter for two years but the prosecution service dropped the charges on May 6.

By Son Hyun-soo, staff reporter

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