Myung Tae-kyun, a self-proclaimed political consultant who is a key figure in a scandal involving President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee, has claimed that Kim intervened in the ruling party’s nomination process for candidates in last year’s general elections. 

Myung’s lawyer released a transcript on Monday of five or six phone calls that Myung had with the first lady between February 16 and February 19 last year. 

Myung claimed that in those phone calls, the first lady asked him to help Kim Sang-min, then chief prosecutor of the Daejeon High Prosecutors’ Office, win a parliamentary seat in Uichang District in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, in the general elections in April last year. 

Kim Sang-min declared his candidacy in the elections in January last year as a sitting prosecutor, but ultimately failed to secure the nomination. 

Myung also said through his lawyer that the first lady told him she had asked South Gyeongsang Gov. Park Wan-soo to help Kim Sang-min, and that ruling party lawmakers Yoon Han-hong and Lee Chul-gyu said the party would achieve a landslide victory.  

Myung said he strongly objected to helping Kim Sang-min win the nomination.