The special counsel team investigating the President Park Geun-hye scandal on Thursday cried foul over the Presidential Office’s unilateral cancellation of an interrogation of the president. 

“There has been no contact between the probe team and the Blue House (to reschedule the session) since the cancellation,” said Lee Kyu-chul, the counsel office’s spokesperson, at a press briefing.

“Since we ruled out a forced investigation on the president, there is no possibility of a Park interview, if the Blue House does not cooperate,” he said.


The Presidential Office called off the planned face-to-face questioning of Park, originally scheduled for Thursday, taking issue with media reports that revealed the date and venue of the unprecedented event. It lambasted the probe team for breach of trust, saying the team must have leaked information to the media. 

Lee said the team did not. 

On the same day, President Park’s friend Choi Soon-sil voluntarily underwent questioning by investigators, in a sudden about-face from her earlier resistance to the probe.

Choi, detained and standing a criminal trial of her own in relation to Park’s scandal, has been brought in for questioning twice -- on Jan. 25 and Feb. 1. But the team had to seek a court order to do so, because of her obstinate refusal to follow the summons, citing a “repressive investigation.”    

“We will be asking about all of the charges filed (against Choi) with a focus on the bribery case,” said Lee.   

She is accused of colluding with Park and her aide to instruct Samsung and 52 other local business groups to give donations totaling 77.4 billion won ($65.1 million) to two nonprofit foundations controlled by her. 

The two entities — the Mir and Sports foundations — are suspected to be covers for channeling money to Choi‘s private business interests, including Core Sports, a paper company she set up in Germany.

The special prosecutor Park Young-soo alleges that the donations from top business groups were in effect bribes to President Park and Choi to win political favors. Samsung’s Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong is suspected of embezzling money to bribe Choi in exchange for the Park administration’s support for the group's much-disputed merger of two seemingly unrelated business units. Through the 2015 merger between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T, Lee tightened his grip on the entire group. 

The suspected bribe is among the key allegations against President Park that led to the National Assembly’s impeachment of her last December. 

Park has been stripped of her powers and is awaiting a final decision from the Constitutional Court on the fate of her presidency.

By Bak Se-hwan (sh@heraldcorp.com)