Impeachment Fraud and the Collapse of Insurrection Narrative
As noted above, the credibility of the key testimonies is now being severely undermined. On February 4, Hong Jang-won testified before the Constitutional Court, stating: “I received a phone call (from President Yoon Suk-yeol) in the dark and hurriedly wrote down (the arrest list). But when I got back to my office, I couldn't decipher my handwriting, so I called my aide to rewrite them legibly.” Hong further admitted that he had “crumpled up and thrown away” his original memo. In other words, the physical memo doesn’t even exist.
[Editor’s note] On February 20, Hong appeared as a witness in the constitutional trial for the second time, unexpectedly claiming to have the original memo, which he then revealed. However, the memo was so incoherent and illegible that it resembled a kindergartener’s scribble.
Four days later, on February 8, National Intelligence Service Director Cho Tae-yong—Hong’s superior—testified before the Constitutional Court, further casting doubt on Hong’s claims. Cho stated that after verifying the details with Hong’s aide, he found that key facts differed significantly from Hong’s testimony. Even the location where Hong supposedly wrote the memo was inconsistent. Hong claimed he had written it “in a vacant lot in front of the NIS building,” but according to Cho, at 11:06 a.m., when the memo was allegedly recorded, Hong was confirmed to have been inside his office at NIS headquarters. Cho stated that CCTV footage backed up this claim. Adding to the controversy, Yeo In-hyung, the counterintelligence commander who purportedly called Hong and dictated the arrest list, has outright denied the memo’s contents.
The testimony of former special forces commander Kwak Jong-geun—who alleged the president ordered him to break into the National Assembly and remove lawmakers—has also been discredited. On December 10, during a National Assembly hearing, Kwak claimed that President Yoon had directly instructed him to disrupt legislative functions. In his indictment, prosecutors stated that the president ordered Kwak to "break down the doors of the National Assembly with an axe and smash the glass windows (to gain entry). But Kwak’s testimony before the Constitutional Court was noticeably different. While he had previously asserted that “President Yoon ordered the removal of lawmakers,” he revised his statement in court, saying, “It was actually ‘personnel,’ not ‘lawmakers.’” Kwak also showed inconsistency regarding the claim that Yoon mentioned an “axe” during their conversation. When questioned in court, he said he “never used that word.”
Meanwhile, 707th Special Mission Group Commander Kim Hyun-tae's testimony in court differed from his December 9 press conference last year. At the press conference, Kim claimed that “Kwak Jong-geun ordered him to ensure that the number of parliamentarians did not exceed 150.” Yet, when testifying before the Constitutional Court, Kim stated that he did not recall hearing the term ‘parliamentarians’ and had no knowledge then that 150 parliamentarians were the quorum required to lift martial law. Kim acknowledged that he had received an order from Kwak to “blockade the National Assembly” during martial law, but clarified that the order was not intended to disrupt parliamentary proceedings but to protect the legislature from external threats.
