The Democratic Party of Korea is mounting a broad offensive over allegations that the daughter of independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon padded her academic credentials, arguing that the original police investigation was inadequate. After questioning the fairness of that investigation during a parliamentary audit, the party is now pressing Han to release documentation supporting his daughter's volunteer work. The escalating attacks are seen as a response to Han's prominent role in the confirmation review of Kim Seung-won, the former nominee for justice minister.
Kang Deuk-gu, head of the Democratic Research Institute, held a press conference at the National Assembly on the 13th and urged Han to "release the supporting documents now, if any exist," referring to his daughter's tutoring volunteer work at a community children's center in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, political sources said on the 14th.
The day before, Kang had said that the national volunteer registry, the 1365 Volunteer Portal, listed Han's daughter as having provided English tutoring and instruction at the Anyang center for one year and eight months beginning in September 2020. According to Kang, she did not actually teach the classes herself but merely coordinated schedules so that other volunteers could conduct online sessions. Han responded that the matter had been settled, saying, "An investigation review panel was convened twice following appeals by the complainants, but the conclusion was that there was no case to answer."
Kang pressed Han further that same day. "Han has said that his child and volunteers from her organization carried out English tutoring remotely, and that the parents of the children who received free online English lessons directly from his child and those volunteers confirmed this," Kang said. "But statements from parents alone do not resolve the doubts." He added: "In materials submitted to the National Assembly in October 2022, the Anyang Volunteer Center said it had requested the submission of supporting documents. Did the daughter submit documentation showing she performed the work herself?"
Calls for a new investigation also emerged. Kang cited remarks by Kim Jong-cheol, acting commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, who said he "would not rule out the possibility of reinvestigation if new facts come to light." Kang said, "Now it is the police's turn to answer. Reinvestigate immediately."
The party also went on the attack during the parliamentary audit of the police agency the previous day. Democratic Party lawmaker Yoon Gun-young noted that during the one year and eight months police spent investigating allegations that Han's daughter had a research paper ghostwritten and violated copyright law, investigators questioned the complainants six times but interviewed the accused only once, in writing. "If this is not a favor-granting, biased investigation, then what is it?" Yoon said. "We must thoroughly examine this kind of biased, favor-granting investigation that took place under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration."
Democratic Party lawmaker Park Ju-min raised questions about whether the teaching materials Han's daughter sold on Amazon were commercial in nature. According to Park, self-published e-books earn authors royalties of about 35% of the sale price. He argued that police concluded there was no profit motive behind the ghostwriting without examining whether revenue had been generated. "Now that new evidence has been presented, a reinvestigation must begin immediately," Park said.
Han, meanwhile, dismissed the allegations surrounding his daughter's paper. "The so-called '99-cent copyright' smear campaign that the Democratic Party piled onto in a mob to take down Han Dong-hoon involved a case in which consent was obtained from the foreign copyright holder," he said. "The Democratic Party simply filed indiscriminate complaints during my justice minister confirmation hearing. There is nothing problematic here at all. It is the Democratic Party's delusion."