The presidential office said Cabinet meetings will not deal with the direction of investigations or prosecutions in individual cases, responding to controversy over the attendance of heads of investigative agencies, including Kim Ji-yong, chief of the Major Crimes Investigation Agency.
"We make clear that Cabinet meetings will not address anything related to investigative or prosecutorial direction in specific individual cases," Sung Ki-hong, senior presidential secretary for public relations and communication, told reporters at the Chunchugwan press center on the 22nd. "This administration is working to ensure fairness and neutrality in investigations, and that principle will not be shaken."
Sung said linking Cabinet meetings to interference in investigations does not fit the purpose of the administration. "This government runs Cabinet meetings as a forum where heads of government agencies share the administration's governing philosophy and pending issues and hold substantive discussions on livelihood matters," he said.
"Social problems, including livelihood issues, involve a wide range of competing interests, so every ministry and agency, not just one, needs to remove the barriers between them and work together," he added. "In line with that purpose, all external agencies attend Cabinet meetings, and the newly launched Major Crimes Investigation Agency and Public Prosecution Agency also fall into that category as part of the government."
On President Lee's post on X, formerly Twitter, a day earlier sharing what he had asked the generative artificial intelligence service Gemini about the attendance of investigative agency heads at Cabinet meetings, Sung said it was "identical to what the president said at the Cabinet meeting on the 13th." He said, "There is no difference between his remarks at that Cabinet meeting, which he explained based on his firm philosophy grounded in the Constitution and the law, and his position yesterday." He added that running state affairs, and Cabinet meetings, on the basis of transparency, openness and accountability is the president's consistent conviction and will.
"Even so, is it consistent with the facts to report on yesterday's post on X as if the president had asked a generative AI service and newly discovered grounds to argue that the attendance of investigative agency heads at Cabinet meetings is essential, and that it was an unprecedented case of the nation's top official citing an AI answer as his basis?" Sung said, raising his voice. "Reporting that state affairs are being run by relying on AI distorts the facts."