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Jang Dong-hyuk, leader of the People Power Party, speaks during a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, on October 13. / Source: Yonhap News

At a party leadership meeting on Monday, Floor Leader Song Eon-seok of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) accused the three special counsels—probing alleged insurrection, allegations involving first lady Kim Keon-hee, and the death of Army Corporal Chae—of spending a combined 7 billion won in the past three months, including 1.7 billion won in undisclosed “special activity funds.”

Song said, “Democrats slashed the Board of Audit and Inspection’s entire special-activity budget last year; its annual total is 1.5 billion won. How can the public understand such lavish, discretionary spending by the special counsels with so little to show for it?”

Calling the three teams “a monstrous group that reveals the Lee administration’s violent nature,” Song criticized what he described as sweeping raids—“from Osan Air Base and the opposition party’s headquarters to church sanctuaries and postpartum care centers”—and claimed the teams conducted 18,982 communications data queries, “surveilling citizens’ call records.”

“What have they actually produced?” he asked. “All that’s left is the tragic death of a Yangpyeong County official.” He urged the counsels to “stop investigations that trample on human rights,” saying “any coercive acts against conscience must cease immediately.”

Responding to the ruling party’s separate push to summon Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae as a parliamentary audit witness, Song criticized it as “barbaric intimidation of the judiciary.” He added, “If Chief Justice Cho must appear as a witness, then President Lee should appear for the presidential office audit, and National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik should appear as a witness for the Assembly Secretariat.”

He continued, “Yet Democrats say they can’t even summon the presidential chief of staff, let alone the president, for the presidential office audit,” vowing that the PPP would “closely scrutinize and block any ‘reckless attempt at judicial destruction’ aimed at overturning court rulings.”