PPP filibusters as DP moves to extend Yoon special counsel
The ruling party moved to keep the special counsel investigating former President Yoon Suk Yeol working through late August, drawing a filibuster from the opposition.
People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun begins a filibuster against a bill to extend the special counsel investigation into former President Yoon Suk Yeol and former first lady Kim Keon Hee at the first plenary session of July's extraordinary session at the National Assembly in Yeondeungpo District, western Seoul, on July 20 as Democratic Party lawmakers leave the chamber.YONHAP
The ruling Democratic Party (DP) put a bill to the National Assembly floor on Monday that would let the special counsel investigating former President Yoon Suk Yeol keep working into late August. The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) responded with a filibuster.
The amendment would raise the number of presidentially-approved extensions available to the second comprehensive special counsel from one 30-day period to two. If President Lee Jae Myung signs off, the investigation could run to Aug. 23.
That team, which launched in February, was created to finish work left over by three earlier special counsel investigations into Yoon's martial law declaration, corruption allegations against his wife Kim Keon Hee and other allegations.
“There isn't enough time to get to the bottom of how the prosecution service took part in the insurrection, or whether public officials helped cover up the Deutsch Motors case,” Seo Young-kyo, the DP lawmaker who chairs the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, said after introducing the bill on the floor. “I ask that the comprehensive special counsel's period be extended.”
The Deutsch Motors case concerns allegations that the former first lady Kim helped manipulate the share price of the BMW dealer between 2010 and 2012. Seo's reference is to a separate strand of the case — whether prosecutors who handled the case improperly shielded her from charges.
The DP's floor leader supported the plan earlier in the day, saying that the investigation shouldn't stop.
“The second comprehensive special counsel has done its best to root out the insurrection under difficult conditions,” DP floor leader and acting head of the party, Han Hyung-do said.
Han Byung-do, floor leader and acting head of the Democratic Party, third from left, holds a placard with other lawmakers at a party caucus meeting at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, on July 20.NEWS1
“Since launching in February it has been producing results — suspicions that the National Security Office passed messages justifying martial law to friendly countries, and allegations that the presidential office pressed for the illegal diversion of budget funds during the residence relocation.”
Both of those cases originated with this team rather than with the three earlier investigations it was created to finish.
“The remaining suspicions, like the flawed audit case and the obstruction of Yoon Suk Yeol's arrest, also need the substantive truth established,” Han said. “There are national suspicions piled up, and we cannot halt the special counsel on the grounds of time.”
The PPP called the extension political revenge. After its own caucus meeting, the party held a rally at the Assembly under a banner reading, “Legislative steamrolling, special counsel extension, the Lee Jae Myung government's endless political retaliation.”
“DP had convened the Legislation and Judiciary Committee on its own to push the extension through before the Assembly had even finished organizing its standing committees,” Jeong Jeom-sig, the party's floor leader, said. “This tramples the minimum principle of dialogue and compromise.
“This second comprehensive special counsel was conceived from the start as a supplementary investigation into the first three. They say they'll strip prosecutors of supplementary investigation powers and abolish them, then extend their own special counsel again and again in the name of supplementary investigation. Does that add up?”
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok, third from right in the front row, and other lawmakers shout slogans condemning the Democratic Party's move to force through an extension of the second comprehensive special counsel's investigation at Rotunda Hall in the National Assembly on the afternoon of July 20.LIM HYUN-DONG
The extension would be the team's second. Each one requires the approval of the president, whose predecessor the team is investigating.
“Of the 17 arrest warrants the comprehensive special counsel team requested, 11 were rejected, a rejection rate of 68 percent,” The PPP floor leader said. “They can't properly substantiate the charges but they hand out warrant requests anyway, and they're pulling frontline prosecutors off cases that affect people's daily lives and delaying them.”
The PPP filed for a filibuster as soon as the bill was tabled. Yoon Sang-hyun, a five-term lawmaker, took the floor first.
The special counsel booked Yoon Sang-hyun this month, along with two other PPP lawmakers, on charges of aggravated obstruction of official duties over the 2025 attempt to arrest former President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The DP and smaller parties aligned with it plan to force the debate to a close on Tuesday afternoon, 24 hours after it began, and then vote.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
