President Yoon Suk Yeol claimed that allegations of an insurrection through martial law and the machination for his impeachment began with former National Intelligence Service(NIS) first deputy director Hong Jang-won and former Special Warfare Commander Kwak Jong-geun.

At his impeachment trial on Thursday, Yoon said it has become apparent that Hong's alleged ploys and Kwak's appearance on a YouTube channel run by an opposition lawmaker three days after the martial law sparked the insurrection allegations and impeachment.

Appearing as a witness, Kwak testified that he had received two phone calls from Yoon on the night of December 3, and that during the second call, the president ordered to forcibly remove lawmakers from parliament in a bid to block passage of a motion to revoke the decree.

Yoon, for his part, strongly refuted Kwak's testimony, saying he had called Kwak, as well as former Capital Defense Commander Lee Jin-woo and Police Commissioner General Cho Ji-ho to verify the situation and safety at the National Assembly.

The president said if Kwak had felt that he was given an unlawful, unjustified and unachievable order, he should have said it would be difficult to carry it out.

Yoon then asked the Constitutional Court to deliberate based on common sense the probability of issuing an order within the public sector to use force to remove lawmakers without a prior discussion.