A long-running alleged plot, if exposed in South Korea, could discredit the country’s often-praised history of republican democracy.
A martial-law order of December 3, 2024, was only part of why prosecutors now charge president Yoon sook yeol with conspiracy to abuse power. Also, prosecutors are aware of an influence peddling scheme involving Yoon.
Additionally, prosecutors are aware of meddling in Yoon’s presidential affairs by national-security officials – including but not limited to defense minister Kim Yong hyun, who is charged along with Yoon with conspiracy to abuse presidential power. As will be discussed below, both the peddling and the meddling are already on record and are there for prosecutors to use if they choose in proceedings before the Constitutional Court expected around March 1, 2025
Peddling
Just hours before he declared martial law, Influence-peddling came back to haunt Yoon when (on the morning of December 3) a court indicted a man, a political fixer named Myung tae-hyun, who, it had been verified, had peddled Yoon’s influence. It has been suggested this indictment spurred Yoon to protect himself by suspending court authority under martial law.[1]
Now, however, a judge touted as the country’s “top constitutional expert” has said publicly that no conspiracy need be discussed in Yoon’s upcoming trial, implying the case should be limited to Yoon’s martial-law order. Retired judge Lee Seog-yeon opined,
“Yoon has clearly violated the Constitution (just with his martial-law order. There is no point in arguing about conspiracy theories in relation to his impeachment.”[3]
Prosecutors probing the bulk of evidence against Yoon still have not released investigative results (as of February 12, 2025). Significantly, these prosecutors have been accused of timidity – in the face not only of the NIS but also of pro-Yoon legislators, a power bloc holding 108 out of 300 seats in the National Assembly;[4] perhaps judge Lee believes only that a simpler case (no conspiracy) would be easier to win for Yoon’s ouster, or his press release may bespeak fear that trial disclosures would discredit US-style democracy in South Korea.
At any rate, according to prosecutors’ indictment,[5] Yoon promoted Kim to defense minister and the two plotted martial law to block public momentum growing for Yoon’s impeachment, and with Myung’s actions (to be reviewed below) in the mix, evidence for a wide-ranging plot seems to exist.
Says Wikipedia,
“(Myung’s operations) had largely remained behind the scenes.”[6]
In 2021, Yoon hired Myung to publish false “poll data” nearing election day. This data misinformed readers – voters – that Yoon had a substantial lead, when in fact Yoon had no lead at all.[7] In late September 2021, in a leaked phone call, Myung tae-hyun told an official at his polling company: “Raise Yoon a little bit and give him a 2-percent lead.”[8] This appears to have caused “bandwagon/snowball” voting in Yoon’s favor.
Yoon after winning in 2022 acknowledged that Myung gave him “some sort of help.[9]
Then came three critical events with publicity stirring public momentum to impeach Yoon:
- In mid-October 2024 defense minister Kim sent military drones to dump propaganda leaflets over North Korean capital Pyongyang[10] (Kim weeks later would recommend martial law to Yoon).
- In late October 2024, government auditors obtained and publicized a document from a survey-taker for Myung that listed 25 politicians who allegedly traded favors with Myung to get their nominations for office from Yoon[11] (one of the 25 later sent Myung a share of her parliamentary salary between August 2022 and December 2023).[12]
- On October 28, 2024, the opposition legislators announced they would probe Myung’s falsifying public opinion-poll data that he then released.[13]
After publicity circulated on each of these critical matters, on November 11, 2024, anti-Yoon demonstrators by the dozens of thousands grouped in Seoul.[14] Yoon had just held a press conference a few days earlier.
At the rally a citizen said of the press event,
“There was a recording of Myung Tae-hyun, but it was just a self-excuse that made the people wonder if they heard something wrong.”
Another said,
“The press conference made me wonder if it was a ploy to whitewash politics.”[15]
A labor leader said at the demonstration,
“Citizens are asking whether the president of this country is…Myung tae-hyun.”
Meddling
When defense minister Kim Yong-hyun, a top national-security chief, recommended Yoon’s martial-law order,[16] this continued a long practice of scheming by national-security officials – including chiefs of spy agency NIS – to meddle in affairs affecting the presidency.
In 2009,
“NIS began what it called a psychological warfare campaign against leftism in South Korea via Internet messaging eventually totaling 1.2 million messages. In 2012, a (presidential) election year, NIS agents using fake Internet ID’s attacked leftist critics of the government.”[17]
Between 2013 to 2017, NIS officials transferred to then-president Park geun hye[18] $3.6 million from the NIS’s special operations fund.[19] The special-ops budget is “intended to finance the most covert operations that require confidentiality.” NIS chief Lee Byung Ho said this money shift was “customary” between NIS and presidential offices;[20] prosecutors proved in court the $3.6 million paid for “illegal political activities.” President Park was convicted of abusing power.
NIS’s psychological warfare team covertly supported and supervised right-wing conservative organizations including youth organizations.[21] Not long after the 2012 election was won by a right-winger, these covert NIS ops were exposed to be “illegal election meddling.”[22] Spy chief Won Sei Hoon was eventually convicted on charges of instructing NIS officials to “manipulate Internet comments.”
NIS fessed up later,[23] but it is doubtful NIS quit vote manipulation – the Internet was too tempting.
That is, mysteriously in 2021, traditionally liberal young voters in big cities switched sides to vote for conservatives, in “staggering” numbers.[24] This reversed 2011 figures of more than 70 percent favoring Democrats.[25] Even winners said this seemed impossible.
“I’m not sure if I’m dreaming or if this is reality,” a conservative winner said.
Pundits scrambling to explain this said voters had reacted to various bad behaviors by incumbent liberals – including favoritism in land deals. Plausible, but the record suggests that around liberal misdeeds, Internet false polls and slanders caused bandwagon/snowball voting accounting for much of the shift.
Similarly, in Yoon’s election in 2022, Yoon fell so far behind he was looking “set to fail.”[26] Then, Yoon promised late in the campaign to end the country’s Gender Equality Ministry.[27] This shock tactic was amplified by an Internet push. In August 2021, a major YouTube influencer[28] dressed as a comic action figure and broadcast himself shouting at a gathering of women activists, “I’m going to murder you all!”[29]
Yoon won by 0.73 percent.
This YouTube shock-stunt was by Bae Ing gyu, who had started his YouTube station just weeks earlier. By the time of the stunt, the station was reaching hundreds of thousands of Koreans, many of whom donated money (Bae raised more than $1,000 per minute during an August Internet session).[30]
In February 2022, the Japan News quoted a Korean historian of language practices, to say,
“We need to look at how there is a market for hate toward not just women but minorities on platforms like YouTube where you can get attention and earn money – it’s a market of hate. The more provocative the content is, the more attention and money you are rewarded with.”[31]
The Korea Times quoted a political science professor as saying,
“The influence of YouTubers is more significant than expected – there is a vicious cycle where they incite others for profit, spreading provocative and biased narratives, and voters then consume this content and become even more polarized.”[32]
Editors explained, “The profits of far-right YouTubers supporting President Yoon Suk Yeol have nearly doubled since his martial law order December 3.”
Influence of US
America invented the Internet and You Tube. And it had plenty of influence before that on South Korean republican democracy. Until 1981, South Korea’s spy agency was called Korea Central Intelligence Agency – because it was modeled deliberately on the US’s CIA, created by CIA tutor agents to spy on North Korea.[33]
“Historically, the South’s far right is in close contact with its US counterpart,” the Associated Press reported on. March 9, 2022.
These contacts, initially forged through evangelical churches and military connections, were further solidified in 2019 when America’s far-right Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) formed its official partner group, the Korea CPAC. The KCPAC has since “injected MAGA ideas” into the Korean far right.[34] Indeed, after Yoon was impeached (and staying out of public), some “quiet maneuvering” by KCPAC’s founder arranged that prominent American MAGA-advocate Matt Schlapp of CPAC could meet privately with Yoon.[35]
This meeting was in a way fitting because “Stop the Steal” placards were carried by Yoon supporters during police attempts to arrest Yoon at his house, which MAGA’s Schlapp visited.[36]
As seen below, two placards were explicit about US/MAGA influence on rallies at Yoon’s house in January 2025, while Yoon remained sequestered from authorities warranted to arrest him.
Conclusion
South Korea currently is in a showdown between the nation’s political right and left. Yoon is currently suspended from his office. A coming verdict from the nation’s Constitutional Court,[37] will either oust or reinstate Yoon.
As we have seen, reinstatement would tend to conceal elements extremely unsavory in South Korean democracy historically.
In closing, it is worth noting that currently in South Korea, one YouTube channel with more than 500,000 subscribers shows videos thatvilify feminists as “mentally ill” radicals. Clearly, this shenanigan is a dark mature stage of the NIS’s anti-left Internet meddling – the “psychological war” birthed before the 2012 election. That is, these days NIS doesn’t need to spend public money on slanderous or otherwise non-factual messages to voters – private donors are doing the spending. It is worth wondering whether South Korea is US-democracy problems writ large.
[1] Xinhua News Agency, February 11, 2025
[2] Yoon is accused of receiving, through Myung tae-hyung, around $57,600 in illegal political funds from a candidate in exchange for his recommending her nomination for the 2022 parliamentary election.
[3] JTBC Newsroom broadcast, cited by MSN, February 10, 2025. Lee served as head of South Korea’s Ministry of Government Legislation during the Lee Myung-bak administration.
[4] News editor Yongjin Kim of Newstapa has opined that prosecutors are deliberately delaying release of investigative results of evidence against Yoon. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, December 7, 2023
[5] Obtained and reported by the magazine Jacobin, January 17, 2025. According to the indictment, the Yoon plot began brewing in August 2024, when Yoon promoted his security chief Kim, to the position of defense minister. Cf. Korea JoongAng DailyDecember 8, 2024,
[6] Wikipedia
[7] In exchange, Yoon appointed a protégé of Myung to a political office. Solid evidence for this trade has long existed (cf. “DP releases recording of president, ‘political broker’ in claims of illegal election intervention,” Korea JoongAng Daily, October 11, 2024). This evidence may well be used to buttress the existing charge against Yoon, of conspiracy to abuse presidential power.
[8] YTN December 24, 2024
[9] Wikipedia, citing News Tomato, October 15, 2024
[10] Agence France Presse and Voice of America, October 19, 2024. The North’s national TV station released photos showing what looked like a damaged aircraft with wide, V-shaped wings and winglets and said a probe had concluded it was the same type of drone that appeared in a South Korean military parade in early October. The South said only that it “could not confirm” such reports
[11] Korea JoongAng Daily, October 21, 2024
[12] Korea Times, December 6, 2024
[13] YTN News Service
[14] Kyunghyang Shinmun, Seoul, November 11, 2024. The demonstration was large enough it likely contributed to declaration of martial law.
[15] Agence France Presse, June 15, 2018.
[16] Korea Times, January 23, 2025
[17] New York Times, June 14, 2014. This drive continued. Jacobin, September 8, 2021, In a predawn raid on September 2, 2021, the South Korean government arrested the president of the country’s largest labor union, making the thirteenth president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions in a row to be jailed.
[18] Daughter of Park Chung Hee, the dictator who himself in 1980 ordered martial law in South Korea.
[19] Korea Herald, November 17, 2017.
[19] Wikipedia
[20] It is likely a quid pro quo for this $3.6 million was an ignoring by Park of NIS meddling in politics.
[21] The Hankyoreh, April 26, 2016. At the time, president Lee Myung bak was taking millions of dollars in bribes during his term from 2008 until 2013. Cf. NPR, October 5, 2018. For right-wing demonstrations, the NIS provided ideas about what slogans to put on placards and requested conservative newspapers to run stories with photographs on these activities. After these stories were printed, agents from the NIS psych-war team spread them over the Internet.
[22] The Verge, November 28, 2013. As noted, fixer Myung also was working at that time – an Internet expert and power broker whose abilities would have distinctly impressed NIS as an ideal recruitable asset in the anti-left campaign by the spy agency. The CIA operates largely through private-sector assets whose own work happens to be valuable to the agency. Covert operations erase tracks (“evidence”) as part of the job, so plausible inference – degrees of likelihood — must be substituted; it is more likely than not that NIS recruited Internet expert and Internet outlet owner Myung tae hyun in its anti-communist “meddling” in electoral affairs.
[23] A 2015 internal inquiry by NIS acknowledged 30 teams worked for more than two years to try to ensure a conservative candidate won in 2012. BBC, August 4, 2017
[24] Ibid.
[25] Yonhap News Agency, April 9, 2021
[26] Asia Times, December 24, 2024
[27] In 2015, the prominent anti-fem group “New Man On Solidarity” had massed publicly to demand politicians abolish the country’s Gender Equality Ministry.
[28] Bae Ing-gyu founded “New Men On Solidarity.”
[29] Slate magazine, November 13, 2021
[30] Irish Times, January 3, 2022
[31] Dr. Sohn Hee-jeong, Ph.D.; Japan News, February 20, 2022
[32] Prof. Choi Chang-ryul of Yong-In University. Korea Times, January 29, 2025
[33] BBC, February 9, 2015
[34] Jacobin magazine, January 17, 2025
[35] Ibid.
[36] In These Times, February 2, 2025
[37] Expected around March 1, 2025.