President Yoon Suk-yeol on Feb. 20 dismissed allegations regarding a controversial ‘arrest list’ memo presented by former National Intelligence Service (NIS) Deputy Director Hong Jang-won, calling it part of an “insurrection and impeachment plot.”
Testifying at Yoon’s impeachment hearing, Hong revised earlier claims about the memo’s origin, saying, “There was some confusion, and I feel the need to clarify the details.”
Yoon’s legal team, questioning Hong for the second time this month, challenged the memo’s credibility after NIS Director Cho Tae-yong testified on Feb. 13 that the memo’s creation process and location did not align with the facts.
Hong had initially claimed that on Dec. 3, 2024, at 11:06 p.m., he jotted down the arrest list while speaking by phone with Yeo In-hyung, former chief of the Defense Counterintelligence Command, outside the NIS director’s official residence. He said Yeo dictated the names after Hong told him about Yoon’s alleged order to “round them all up.”
However, security footage released by the ruling People Power Party showed Hong entering NIS headquarters at 10:58 p.m. that night, contradicting his earlier account.
On Feb. 20, Hong revised his testimony, saying, “The memo was written not outside the residence but in my office.” He explained he had three phone calls with Yeo that night—at 10:46 p.m., 10:58 p.m., and 11:06 p.m.—clarifying, “Upon reviewing my memory, Yeo first offered to provide the names while I was outside, but I wrote them down in my office.”
When Yoon’s team asked if he recalled the details only after the CCTV footage emerged, Hong responded, “Cho’s disclosure of the footage led me to reexamine the situation. My previous testimony mistakenly merged the two calls into one.”
The National Assembly’s legal team countered that “CCTV timestamps may not be entirely accurate.”
Yoon rejected the claim that he had ordered arrests, stating, “I told Hong to support counterintelligence efforts to catch spies, not to issue arrest orders.” The core issue, Yoon argued, is the misinterpretation of his words as an arrest order.
He further argued that Hong held onto the memo until resigning on Dec. 5 and being dismissed the following day, at which point it was framed as evidence of an arrest order.
While Yoon acknowledged instructing Yeo to “monitor movements and locations,” he conceded, “That was unnecessary and a mistake on my part.”
