Anchor: Oceans Minister Chun Jae-soo submitted his resignation on Thursday following accusations that he received bribes from the Unification Church when serving as a Busan lawmaker. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young is also suspected of having received money from the church a few years ago, but the former presidential candidate denied the accusation.
Kim Bum-soo has wrapped up the latest on the spiraling Unification Church scandal, which is now reaching the Lee Jae Myung administration. 

Report: At the center of the Unification Church controversy is the religious group's former second-in-command, who has indicated that he lobbied not only People Power Party(PPP) politicians but also those in the ruling Democratic Party(DP).

Oceans Minister Chun Jae-soo is among a handful of heavyweights Yun Young-ho, former head of the Unification Church's world headquarters, named during an interrogation by the special prosecution team investigating former first lady Kim Keon-hee.

The oceans minister, widely touted as the ruling party's Busan mayoral candidate, submitted his resignation on Thursday amid suspicions that the church gave him money.

[Sound bite: Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Chun Jae-soo (Korean-English)]
"There was absolutely no illegal bribery of any kind. Absolutely not. Let me make this clear. And secondly, our citizens should not be shaken by such absurd, false information, nor should the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries or the government itself."

Yun had testified in August to giving Chun as much as 40 million won, or roughly 27-thousand U.S. dollars, and two luxury watches between 2018 and 2020, when Chun was a lawmaker representing Busan.

The Unification Church allegedly wanted the government to construct an undersea tunnel linking South Korea and Japan.

Also named in the Unification Church scandal was Unification Minister and former presidential candidate Chung Dong-young, who has since denied Yun's reported claims.

[Sound bite: Unification Minister Chung Dong-young (Korean-English)]
"Reporting such a rumor without even verifying the facts and defaming me is character assassination. I met Mr. Yun Young-ho. We met once. It was back when I was outside of politics. I got his business card and heard he was a powerful figure in the Unification Church. The three of us sat down—a Unification Church official, Mr. Yoon Young-ho and I—in a cafe or something. We spent about ten minutes there, talking about unification. That's all."

The former Unification Church official stated during his trial last week that his church had closer ties with the DP between 2017 and 2021 and that he'd reached out to four current members of President Lee Jae Myung’s Cabinet in 2022. He said that two of those members ended up visiting Unification Church leader Han Hak-ja.

His statements led to speculation that the special counsel has not been entirely impartial when allegations emerged against those in the ruling camp. 

During a Cabinet meeting earlier this week, Lee floated the possibility of disbanding what he called "a religious group" that was violating the nation's laws.

The People Power Party later said that Lee, with his threatening remarks, had been trying to pressure the Unification Church into saying no more about its ties to his party.

The PPP is now calling for the launch of a separate special counsel probe to get to the bottom of the Democratic Party's allegations.
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.