Cheong Wa Dae is under snowballing pressure to come clean on its role in the alleged attempt to cover up the illegal surveillance of a civilian by officials of the Prime Minister’s Office in 2008.

Opposition parties are zeroing in on President Lee Myung-bak. Defining the case as a Korean version of the Watergate scandal that ousted U.S. President Richard Nixon, they urged Lee to clear up the suspicions that some of his former top aides had been involved in a systematic cover-up.

The suspicions surfaced following the bombshell revelations dropped last week by Jang Jin-su, one of the seven former PMO officials who were convicted of the illegal surveillance of Kim Jong-ik, head of NS Hanmaum, a subsidiary of KB Financial Group.

Jang, who was given an eight-month sentence suspended for two years at his second trial last April, disclosed recordings of conversations he had with officials of Cheong Wa Dae and the PMO.

The officials included Choi Jong-seok, a former employment and labor affairs official at the presidential office who, Jang said, had told him to destroy evidence of surveillance after discussing the matter with prosecutors.

In a conversation with Jang in October 2010, shortly before his first trial, Choi asked him to keep silent, promising to take good care of him for the rest of his life.

The whistleblower confessed he had received 40 million won in August 2010 from an official of the Ministry of Labor and Employment, who delivered the money to him at Choi’s instruction. Jang said he used the money to pay the lawyer’s fees for his trial.

Earlier this week, Jang also disclosed that he had received 50 million won from a PMO official last April. He alleged that the money came from Jang Seok-myeong, a senior official at the Office of the Senior Secretary to the President for Civil Affairs. The PMO official refused to say where the money came from.

Last week, Jang also said he had received 20 million won last August from Lee Young-ho, a former presidential secretary for employment and labor affairs. Lee was Choi’s boss before the scandal broke out.

It was also reported that Yim Tae-hee, the chief of staff to the president at the time, gave an unknown amount of cash to families of two other convicted former PMO officials. Yim said he had given the money purely out of sympathy.
As suspicions of Cheong Wa Dae’s cover-up attempt kept growing, Lee Young-ho held a news conference on Tuesday to dispel them. His bid backfired.

Lee tried to refute the court’s rulings at the two trials on the case by denying, unconvincingly, that there was any attempt to destroy evidence of illegal surveillance. Claiming responsibility for the destruction of the computer hard disks, he asserted that the destroyed data was not evidence of illegal surveillance but personal information about government officials that should not be leaked.

Lee justified his action by noting that the previous governments of Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun had also destroyed personal information of public office holders, using degaussing and other means.

He admitted to giving money to Jang but said it was not hush money but a gesture of “good will.”

Whether Lee’s claims are true or not will be determined by prosecutors, who have reopened their investigation into the case. But the problem is that the public has lost confidence in the prosecutors.

In their previous investigation, prosecutors did not bother to go to the bottom of the matter. Despite suspicions that Cheong Wa Dae was involved in the bugging of the NS Hanmaum head, they only punished PMO officials, letting all presidential aides off the hook.

But prosecutors should realize that the reopened investigation is their last chance to restore public confidence. This time, they should not leave any room for suspicion. For this, they need to bear in mind that there is no such thing as a sanctuary in a criminal investigation.

More importantly, Cheong Wa Dae officials who had been involved in the affair should come clean on their own. They need to remember that what ousted President Nixon was not the Watergate break-in but the subsequent attempts to cover it up. If they had committed any wrongdoing, they have to tell the truth and face the music. The sooner, the better.