[Reporter’s Notebook] How Yoon Suk Yeol turned Constitutional Court hearings into political theater

As a reporter, I never expected I’d have to cover two presidential impeachments.

Nearly eight years ago, on March 10, 2017, I stood in the street near Gwanghwamun, interviewing people who reacted with joy and anger after the court unanimously ruled to remove then-President Park Geun-hye from office.

This time, the biggest difference was seeing the president himself defend his case in court. Yoon Suk Yeol, a career prosecutor for 27 years, became the first sitting president in South Korean history to do so.

From the beginning, Yoon appeared to employ a strategy of attempting to delay the trial.

After the Constitutional Court notified him about the impeachment case on Dec. 16, he neither received nor sent any requested court documents for over 10 days.

His first reaction came just five hours before the initial preparatory hearing, when he at last submitted a list with the names of three defense attorneys.

He skipped the first few hearings, as many had expected, given the actions of the past two presidents who had been impeached.

Then, on Jan. 21, during the third hearing, he appeared to deliver arguments that justified his actions on the night of his botched martial law declaration, Dec. 3.

It seemed as though Yoon had been waiting for the perfect moment to step into the spotlight.

Many questioned what he would gain from attending the hearings. But from the moment he arrived, it was apparent that his presence was designed to help consolidate his support base.

For one thing, his presence provided sound bites. Yoon’s court appearances ensured that his arguments — directly from his mouth — reached the public, in particular his supporters, regardless of the remarks’ accuracy. An about-face from his nearly 11-hour silence during the closed-door investigation following his arrest on Jan. 15, he seized every opportunity in court to speak.

The court did not, and legally could not, interrupt his statements.

By law, Constitutional Court hearings are televised for the press in a separate room inside the courthouse and made available to the public online afterward. Registered individuals can also attend in person. Yoon appeared and took full advantage of this platform.

Inside the courtroom, he harangued the justices to justify the legitimacy of his martial law declaration. Outside, more than 1,000 of his staunch supporters gathered in the bitter cold and chanted "Stop the Steal" on a police-guarded street.

For some, it seemed to work. A Penn and Mike poll targeting 1,002 men and women aged 18 and older nationwide and conducted Feb. 2-3 showed that Yoon’s approval rating had hit 51 percent, surpassing 50 percent for the first time since his impeachment. Compared to the previous survey, his approval rating had increased by 2.9 percentage points, while his disapproval rating had dropped by 4.2 percentage points.

This survey was conducted via phone, with a response rate of 5.1 percent, and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.

Yoon also carefully chose when to appear and how he looked, controlling his narrative.

During the 11th and final hearing Tuesday, he skipped the session where the National Assembly's nine legal representatives delivered their closing arguments. He was absent when Rep. Jung Chung-rae, from the Assembly side prosecuting the case, delivered an impassioned 40-minute closing argument that Yoon must be impeached for trying to "erase the history of South Korean democracy written in blood."

Despite being detained in the Seoul Detention Center and with gray hair beginning to show over the seven-week trial, Yoon always appeared in a dark suit, white shirt and dark red tie -- the same outfit he wore during the night of his martial law declaration. He bowed at a 90-degree angle to the justices. He frowned when witnesses contradicted him and gestured as if scolding his lawyers when they dwelled on a point for too long.

As a defendant, Yoon was a smooth talker with a career prosecutor’s instinct and the coach of his own legal team.

Inside the courtroom, he did not miss a chance to address his long-held suspicions, weaving them into his defense of his Dec. 3 attempt to impose military rule on the country. He took the floor to push claims of election fraud and attempted to refute that he had ordered the deployment of armed martial law troops to the legislature.

Although his arguments may not drastically alter public opinion, they could have other implications for the opposition and government.

If the Constitutional Court votes to uphold his impeachment early next month, Yoon will be officially removed — over two years ahead of his term’s end on May 9, 2027 ― followed by an early presidential election within 60 days. If dismissed, he will immediately return to the role of South Korea’s president.