Lee: “Giving up direction and supervision of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency is grounds for impeachment”

[Financial News] President Lee Jae Myung said on the 22nd, regarding the debate over the head of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency attending State Council meetings, “The president’s direction and supervision of state affairs are both a power and a responsibility,” adding, “Giving up direction and supervision of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency violates the Constitution and the Government Organization Act and constitutes grounds for impeachment.” Lee also said it is a crime punishable as dereliction of duty. After some in legal circles and elsewhere raised concerns that the agency chief’s attendance at State Council meetings could adversely affect the fairness and impartiality of investigations, Lee is understood to have reiterated that the chief’s attendance is appropriate and clarified his existing position.
Lee emphasized the point that “the Constitution and the Government Organization Act explicitly state that all ministries, offices and agencies—whether the Public Prosecution Office, the Korean Meteorological Administration or the National Fire Agency—are subject to the direction and supervision of the president and the prime minister” in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that day.
Lee asked rhetorically, “Are you saying the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency should not be supervised, in violation of the Constitution and the law?” and “Are you saying direction and supervision should not take place in open meetings, but privately behind closed doors?”
He criticized the arguments, saying, “The notion that ‘excluding’ the agency from open meetings is a way to ensure political neutrality is illogical,” and, “The demand that the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency not be allowed to attend open State Council meetings is a contrived argument that runs counter to the Constitution, the law and common sense.”
Lee also addressed his post on the 21st, in which he shared his views on the head of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency attending State Council meetings, drawing on an answer from Gemini, Google’s generative AI. He emphasized, “I didn’t cite Gemini because I didn’t know. I did it so people could see just how elementary the logic behind that claim—that the chief should not attend—is, how far it departs from the facts, and how low its level is.” The previous day, Lee posted on X: “I asked Gemini. The argument that the heads of the Public Prosecution Office and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency cannot attend State Council meetings, in denial of Article 11 of the Government Organization Act, is unconstitutional and specious. The claim that they should be excluded from State Council meetings is sophistry that flatly denies the president’s administrative oversight authority and the structure of government leadership set out in the Constitution and the Government Organization Act.”
After criticism emerged in and outside political circles that the president might be relying on AI as a basis for running state affairs, Senior Presidential Secretary for Public Relations and Communication Seong Gi-hong met with reporters at the Chunchugwan Press Center at the Blue House and said, “It wasn’t a matter of asking AI how to run the government, but of checking the facts,” adding, “Reporting or claiming that the president is relying on AI to run the government misleads and distorts the facts.”
Seong explained, “The president’s remarks were meant to emphasize that the facts at issue—the relevant provisions of the Constitution and the Government Organization Act—can be easily and quickly verified by asking Gemini.” He added, “The basis for the heads of investigative agencies attending State Council meetings, as set out in the X post the previous day, was not an argument newly discovered through AI; it was something the president had stated publicly at the State Council meeting on the 13th.”
[email protected] Choi Jong-geun, Seong Seok-woo Reporter