Is President Lee Jae-myung a Victim? Choo Mi-ae Defends Against Gangster Allegations

Choo Mi-ae, a Democratic Party lawmaker, said on March 14 that the court upheld the suspended sentence for lawyer Jang Young-ha — who spread allegations linking President Lee Jae-myung to organized crime — and insisted that President Lee is a wrongfully accused victim.

In a post on Facebook, Choo said the sentence for Jang, who circulated baseless claims tying Lee to organized crime, has been finalized, yet the media that amplified those claims has fallen silent in the face of the truth.

She said the rumors directed at President Lee were relentless and at times vicious. During his tenure as party leader and later when he ran as a candidate for governor of Gyeonggi Province, he faced sustained attacks and slander from both inside and outside the party.

Choo added that mainstream figures even pushed for his removal from the race, and she urged people not to be swayed by idle talk but to judge him on his competence.

She said the pattern continued through the presidential campaign. False narratives, including the Daejang-dong scandal, were manufactured then. Choo accused Yoon Suk Yeol of using those false smears to justify a series of fabricated investigations, which ultimately failed.

Choo warned that media-generated false frames can outlast the truth. \"That's why I've been saying the same thing for years, and I still say it loudly,\" she wrote, reiterating her view that President Lee has been wrongfully accused.

Earlier, on March 12, the Supreme Court's 3rd Division (Presiding Justice Lee Suk-yeon) affirmed the lower court's ruling that convicted Jang of publicly spreading false information in violation of the Public Official Election Act over the organized-crime allegations, sentencing him to one year in prison, suspended for two years.