By Song Jin-ho
Attorney for President Yoon Suk-yeol
In a liberal democratic nation, elections are the foundation of the system. However, there are suspicions that election fraud in South Korea has been occurring since 2002, when electronic vote-counting machines were fully introduced. In South Korea, there have been numerous suspected cases of election fraud, including National Election Commission servers connected to external networks, the server password “12345,” vote counts exceeding the number of registered voters in a district, ballots with no crease marks, ballots where the election supervisor’s fingerprint was not properly stamped, and electronic vote-counting machines continuously counting votes only for specific candidates—all of which mirror the patterns of election fraud discovered in the United States. Regarding this, President Yoon Suk-yeol had no way to verify whether election fraud had occurred in South Korea. This was because the Democratic Party of Korea and the judiciary blocked all investigations into the voter registry and the National Election Commission’s servers, leaving the President with no choice but to verify the situation through martial law administration under the emergency martial law procedures available to him.
In the 20th Presidential Election on March 9, 2022, candidate Yoon Suk-yeol was confirmed to be leading candidate Lee Jae-myung by about 10% up until the day before the election. However, on election day itself, Yoon Suk-yeol won by a narrow margin of 0.73%. This was the result of having built such an overwhelming lead that he could win even in the face of election fraud manipulation, ultimately securing victory by a very narrow margin. Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party of Korea raised no objections to this outcome. This was not an acceptance of the election results, but rather a hasty concession out of fear that raising objections would lead to the exposure of election fraud. Even in the 21st National Assembly election held on April 15, 2020, prior to the presidential election, the Democratic Party of Korea was suspected of securing a number of seats far exceeding a majority through election fraud. Once the Yoon Suk-yeol administration took office, Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party of Korea used that majority to paralyze state affairs by impeaching dozens of innocent high-ranking public officials and slashing the core budget of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. They also obstructed criminal investigations, including those into drug-related crimes, and, through civic groups affiliated with them, began a campaign to oust and impeach President Yoon Suk-yeol even before his inauguration.
Furthermore, they filed impeachment motions against prosecutors investigating corruption involving Lee Jae-myung himself—who is currently facing five trials and investigations on 12 charges—and Democratic Party lawmakers, in an attempt to prevent these investigations from proceeding. Until President Yoon Suk-yeol was impeached by the Constitutional Court on April 4, 2025, Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party of Korea passed resolutions to impeach cabinet members and prosecutors—who were not facing any charges—on 22 separate occasions. In the case of the Minister of Justice, they even went so far as to file an impeachment motion simply because he had glared at Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, in the National Assembly. In South Korea, once an impeachment motion is filed, the accused is suspended from duty until the Constitutional Court issues a ruling. This led to a situation where cabinet members and prosecutors were unable to perform their duties—including governing and conducting investigations—for approximately six months pending the Court’s decision. Due to these legal complications, whenever Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party proposed an impeachment motion, the targets often resigned voluntarily out of concern that their resignations would paralyze administrative operations.
These impeachment motions by the Democratic Party of Korea—aimed at paralyzing state affairs and obstructing investigations—as well as the agitation and protests calling for President Yoon Suk-yeol’s resignation, were all carried out under orders from China and North Korea. This has been revealed through investigations and trials of North Korean spies, and it is evident from the content of the first impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk-yeol submitted by Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party of Korea immediately after martial law was declared, which alleged that the Yoon Suk-yeol administration was pro-U.S. and pro-Japan while neglecting relations with China and Russia.
In light of these persistent allegations of election fraud, the dozens of impeachment motions filed by Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party against innocent public officials under orders from China and North Korea, the paralysis of state affairs caused by cuts to core national budgets, the obstruction of drug investigations, the obstruction of investigations into their own corruption, and threats against the judiciary currently trying Lee Jae-myung and Democratic Party lawmakers—President Yoon Suk-yeol could not help but harbor serious concerns that South Korea’s liberal democratic system, which the United States defended at the cost of blood, might collapse.
Then, upon seeing the Democratic Party of Korea move to impeach the Auditor General on December 2, 2024, he decided to declare martial law to inform the public of the reality facing the Republic of Korea. During the administration of President Moon Jae-in, President Yoon’s immediate predecessor, the U.S. THAAD system was deployed in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang Province. To obstruct this, the Director of National Security under the Moon administration and others leaked classified information regarding the equipment’s delivery to China and anti-THAAD protest groups, and the Board of Audit and Inspection had intended to investigate this. Additionally, fraudulent hiring practices were rampant within the National Election Commission, and the Board of Audit and Inspection had intended to investigate these as well. However, on December 2, 2024, Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party of Korea moved to impeach the head of the Board of Audit and Inspection in an attempt to block investigations into the National Election Commission’s irregular hiring—which was suspected of being linked to election fraud—and the Moon Jae-in administration’s espionage activities on behalf of China and North Korea. Upon witnessing this, President Yoon Suk-yeol, unable to stand idly by in the face of such atrocities committed by anti-state forces, decided to impose martial law on December 2, 2024, to safeguard the constitutional order of liberal democracy, and subsequently declared martial law at 10:30 p.m. on December 3, 2024.
President Yoon Suk-yeol’s state of emergency was declared at 10:30 p.m. on December 3, 2024, and, following the National Assembly’s resolution to lift martial law at 1:03 a.m. on December 4, 2024, troops were immediately withdrawn from the National Assembly, effectively lifting the state of emergency. Subsequently, the lifting was formally declared at 4:29 a.m. on December 4, 2024, following a Cabinet meeting. In effect, martial law was lifted in just about two and a half hours. Only a very small number of soldiers and police were mobilized for martial law, and they were deployed to the National Assembly and buildings related to the National Election Commission. They were deployed to the National Assembly to maintain order out of concern that large crowds might gather there, and they were deployed to facilities related to the National Election Commission out of concern that forces involved in election fraud might attempt to remove evidence of fraud to the outside during martial law. The purpose of the deployment to the National Election Commission’s server room was to verify whether issues previously identified by the National Intelligence Service during an inspection of the Commission’s IT management—such as whether connections to external networks had been blocked and whether passwords were set to “12345”—had been rectified. Even these basic checks could not be carried out due to obstruction by the National Election Commission and the judiciary.
By 1:03 a.m. on December 4, 2024—the time the National Assembly passed the motion to lift martial law—the total number of troops deployed within the National Assembly grounds consisted of a mere 15 personnel from the Capital Defense Command and approximately 270 personnel from the Special Forces Command. The 15 troops from the Capital Defense Command entered the National Assembly grounds unarmed, without even carrying rifles, while the Special Forces troops entered carrying only empty rifles, without any live ammunition on their persons. In contrast to this small force, 10,000 to 20,000 citizens had gathered near the National Assembly at the time, and thousands more had already trespassed into the Assembly grounds by scaling the walls. Although the soldiers deployed to the National Assembly grounds to maintain order were assaulted by citizens and had their military equipment seized, the soldiers did not take a single physical action against the citizens, and not a single citizen was injured.
The martial law the President had in mind at the time was not the kind that mobilized tens of thousands of troops as in the past, but rather a symbolic martial law intended to send a message to the public about the reality of the collapse of South Korea’s liberal democracy—a warning. If President Yoon Suk-yeol had planned a coup d’état or an insurrection, he would have declared martial law abruptly in the early hours of a Saturday morning—when the National Assembly was not in session—mobilized tens of thousands of armed troops, and, prior to the declaration, already dispatched troops to the National Assembly and other locations to seal them off the moment martial law was declared and arrest lawmakers immediately. Nowhere on earth has there ever been an insurrection where troops carried no live ammunition, let alone firearms, and immediately withdrew upon the National Assembly’s demand to lift martial law. Furthermore, not a single lawmaker faced any obstruction in entering the National Assembly to conduct business, as evidenced by the fact that lawmakers swiftly gathered in the plenary hall to pass a resolution lifting martial law.
However, anti-state forces such as Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party of Korea immediately labeled President Yoon Suk-yeol’s declaration of martial law as an act of insurrection. Utilizing media outlets already bought off by China and North Korea, they launched a campaign to impeach President Yoon Suk-yeol, and with the participation of some lawmakers from the People Power Party, they passed an impeachment motion against him. Yet, even though he remains the incumbent president pending a decision by the Constitutional Court, these individuals—fearing that their election fraud and and espionage activities involving China and North Korea, they initiated a forced investigation against the sitting president—an act prohibited by the Constitution. The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, the agency in charge of the investigation, lacked the authority to investigate charges of insurrection; yet, the judiciary actively cooperated with the investigation by permitting the probe of the sitting president through unconstitutional legal interpretations and issuing warrants containing violations of laws and regulations. Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party of Korea, and the judiciary—all of whom are suspected of having committed and concealed election fraud—have joined forces to conduct a compulsory investigation into the sitting president in violation of the Constitution and the law.
On January 15, 2025, the High Prosecutors’ Office mobilized 3,000 police officers to break through the fence surrounding the presidential residence where the President was staying using vehicles and chainsaws, and arrested the President; many citizens were injured in the process. How could such events occur in a modern liberal democratic nation founded on the rule of law? All of this was perpetrated by Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party of Korea, and the judiciary, who deny the rule of law in a liberal democracy.
President Yoon Suk-yeol has since been standing trial while in custody and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance on charges of insurrection. Not only President Yoon Suk-yeol, but also many others—including soldiers and police officers mobilized under martial law, cabinet members who participated in the cabinet meeting prior to the declaration of martial law, and presidential security personnel—are currently on trial, with second and third instance trials underway, resulting in sentences of over ten years. However, these trials are all proceeding merely as a formality, with the conclusions already predetermined.
Furthermore, Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party of Korea, and the judiciary are committing human rights abuses against President Yoon Suk-yeol, who remains in custody. Regarding President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is currently detained and on trial, a special prosecutor has been appointed to conduct eight separate trials through fragmented indictments, effectively subjecting him to judicial torture. Furthermore, the special prosecutor has continuously demanded the President’s attendance; when he refused, they attempted to forcibly load him onto a bus using prison guards, and even went so far as to physically assault him by lifting President Yoon—who was seated—and forcibly placing him into a transport vehicle to bring him to court. Even when President Yoon Suk-yeol, who suffers from a chronic illness, goes for medical treatment outside the detention center, they do not hesitate to subject him to unspeakable personal humiliation and human rights abuses, such as handcuffing him and fitting him with an electronic ankle monitor in full view of the public. The intent was to induce him to make an extreme choice by making him feel this profound sense of humiliation.
The U.S.-Korea relationship is a blood alliance. Countless young Americans willingly sacrificed their lives for South Korea’s liberal democracy. And South Korea has achieved its development under a liberal democratic system through a strong U.S.-South Korea alliance. However, South Korea’s liberal democracy and religious freedom—which were preserved at the cost of the lives of young Americans—now stand at a crossroads. Due to election fraud, the left-wing shift of the judiciary, and the media’s alignment with pro-North Korean factions, the door to communism and socialism has already been opened, and we are entering that path. South Korea is suspected of being the epicenter of election fraud worldwide, and there are suspicions that the know-how gained from fraudulent elections in South Korea is being directly applied in the United States and other countries. South Korea has already lost its ability to self-correct, and Lee Jae-myung and the Democratic Party of Korea have fully laid the groundwork for a one-party dictatorship; without American assistance, it cannot return to the camp of liberal democracy. President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was willing to sacrifice himself to the very end to defend liberal democracy and religious freedom, desperately needs the United States’ attention and support. Please do not turn your back on South Korea; please help the Korean people so that true liberal democracy and religious freedom can be achieved once again through a strong U.S.-South Korea alliance.
May 30, 2026
