Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok was caught on camera again leafing through his notebook during a National Assembly plenary session, this time with a note appearing to read "Han Dong-hoon file." A previous image showed candidates for Seoul mayor and the phrase "Lee Jin-sook, Han Dong-hoon OUT."
According to political sources on the 2nd, cameras captured Kim checking notes in his notebook during the 10th plenary session of the National Assembly the previous day. The photo showed what appeared to be notes reading "wartime operational control," "Sejong assembly building office check," "security," "one-line letter committee," "dignity and livelihood check," "Han Dong-hoon file" and "Park Si-young Sisa Tapa."
Last month, Kim's notebook was also photographed at a National Assembly plenary session showing the phrase "Lee Jin-sook, Han Dong-hoon OUT" along with the names of figures mentioned as potential candidates for Seoul mayor, including Presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik.
The most notable entry was "Han Dong-hoon file." While the contents cannot be determined from the note alone, some speculate it refers to material on independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon that was used in attacks on Kim Seung-won, the former nominee for justice minister.
After the contents of Kim's notebook were made public, Han wrote on his Facebook page that "Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Seung-won, who was called a better appointment the more you looked at him, and a ruling party leader who cannot even speak properly about North Korea's landmine attack are busy cooking up dirty schemes behind the scenes." He added, "Try doing politics a little more 'joa-hage.'"
The word "joa-hada" is listed in the National Institute of Korean Language's standard dictionary as meaning "for an official to be at work in a government office." Online, however, it has been coined by replacing the "u" in "u-ahage," meaning elegantly, which is also the character for right-wing, with "jwa," the character for left-wing, and it has recently circulated as a meme among progressive supporters. It is read as a jab at President Lee Jae-myung, who on the same day shared a supporter's post on X, formerly Twitter, saying the government's first-year achievements had passed 200 items, and wrote, "Please join in, joa-hage."
Kim, for his part, pushed back on Democratic Party TV the same day. "Even for a public figure, the public sphere has certain limits and there is privacy, so I wondered whether this is legally justified," he said. "Is it really right to freely make inferences from what may be only a heading, where someone has personally jotted down their own thoughts?" Kim also said: "I glanced at an article, and when the Seoul mayor note became an issue last time I gave an explanation, but this time there were several cases where the handwriting itself was misread. I don't think I need to go out of my way to explain that."
