Overview
The Choi Soon-sil influence scandal (the Park Geun-hye–Choi Soon-sil gate) is a case in which Choi Soon-sil, a private citizen with no official title, drew on her long personal relationship with President Park Geun-hye to receive speeches and Blue House documents in advance and to influence personnel and policy. The president and Blue House aides demanded that large corporations contribute to foundations and provide various forms of support, thereby helping Choi pursue private gain. Choi used the name "Choi Seo-won" from February 2014, and during the trial she was mainly referred to by that name.
The political consequences of the case, the National Assembly's impeachment motion and the Constitutional Court's removal decision, are covered in Impeachment of Park Geun-hye. Choi Seo-won's daughter Jeong Yu-ra's preferential admission and academic favors at Ewha Womans University are covered in Jeong Yu-ra admissions scandal. This article focuses on the substance of the allegations, the investigation, and the criminal trials of the main figures involved.
Background
The ties between Park Geun-hye and the Choi family date back to the presidency of Park Chung-hee, when Choi Seo-won's father, Choi Tae-min, was involved. In November 2014, an internal Blue House document alleging that Choi Seo-won's former husband, Chung Yun-hoe, was interfering in state affairs as a "shadow power figure" (the Chung Yun-hoe document incident) was leaked to the media. At the time, Chung denied the allegation that he was a shadow power figure.
Development of the Allegations
- Foundation fundraising: The Mir Foundation, a culture foundation, was established on October 27, 2015, and the K-Sports Foundation, a sports foundation, in January 2016. Thirty major corporations, including Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, and LG, contributed 48.6 billion won to the Mir Foundation, and the total raised by the two foundations reached 77.4 billion won. The Federation of Korean Industries served as the fundraising channel. On July 26, 2016, TV Chosun first reported the suspicion that Ahn Jong-beom, the Blue House economic secretary, had been involved in the Mir Foundation fundraising.
- Emergence of Choi Seo-won: On September 20, 2016, the Hankyoreh reported that Choi Seo-won had been involved in the two foundations, and in October the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported on companies she had set up in Germany and Korea (Biddex Sports and The Blue K). The suspicion of preferential treatment for Jeong Yu-ra at Ewha Womans University also surfaced around this time during a parliamentary audit.
- Tablet report: On October 19, JTBC reported testimony from Go Young-tae, a close associate, that Choi Seo-won had revised presidential speeches. On October 24, it reported that a tablet computer obtained from the Doublek office in Cheongdam-dong, Seoul, contained 44 presidential speech drafts and other materials that had been stored before their public release. The next day, President Park Geun-hye apologized to the public and partially acknowledged that she had received Choi Seo-won's help.
Investigation
Choi Seo-won, who had been staying in Germany, returned to Korea on October 30, 2016. The following day, she appeared before prosecutors and was then urgently arrested over concerns she would destroy evidence. On November 2, Ahn Jong-beom, the policy coordination secretary, and Jeong Ho-seong, a deputy secretary, were arrested. On November 20, the prosecutors' special investigation team indicted Choi Seo-won, Ahn Jong-beom, and Jeong Ho-seong, listing President Park Geun-hye as an accomplice in the indictment. The core charges were coercion of major corporations into contributing (abuse of authority and coercion) and the official secrets leak charge for Jeong Ho-seong's delivery of Blue House documents to Choi Seo-won.
The National Assembly conducted a parliamentary investigation (November 17, 2016 to January 15, 2017) and passed a separate special prosecutor act. Park Young-su was appointed special prosecutor on November 30, and the full-scale investigation began on December 21, with prosecutor Yoon Suk-yeol serving as head of the investigation team. The special prosecutor's office concluded that Samsung had supported Choi's side in hopes of receiving help with management succession, and on February 17, 2017, it arrested Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, on bribery charges. The team also uncovered the so-called "culture blacklist," in which culture and arts figures critical of the government were to be excluded from support, and on January 21 it arrested former presidential chief secretary Kim Ki-choon and Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Jo Yoon-sun. The blacklist reportedly included 9,473 people, among them culture and arts figures who had declared support for Moon Jae-in or Park Won-soon, or who had joined political statements related to the Sewol ferry disaster. Because Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn did not approve an extension of the investigation period, the special prosecutor concluded the investigation on February 28, 2017. It indicted 30 people in total, including the arrest of 13.
Parliamentary Investigation Hearings
At the parliamentary investigation special committee hearings on December 6, 2016, nine heads of major corporations appeared together as witnesses and were questioned about whether their foundation contributions were conditional on favors. Former chief secretary Kim Ki-choon first said he did not know Choi Seo-won, but after a debate video from the 2007 presidential candidate verification debate was presented, he changed his statement and said he could not say he had not heard her name. On January 9, 2017, at the seventh hearing, Minister Jo Yoon-sun acknowledged for the first time the existence of the blacklist, which she had previously denied. The hearings were broadcast live and attracted great attention, and some witnesses were punished for perjury.
Trials and Final Judgments
- Choi Seo-won: In June 2017, she received a first-instance sentence of three years in prison for admissions and academic fraud at Ewha Womans University (obstruction of business), which was finalized on November 29, 2018. In the bribery and abuse of authority case, she received a first-instance sentence of 20 years in prison on February 13, 2018, and on August 24, 2018, the appellate court imposed 20 years in prison and a fine of 20 billion won. On August 29, 2019, the Supreme Court remanded the case, reasoning among other things that some of the acts of demanding contributions from companies were difficult to regard as coercion. In February 2020, the remand appellate court sentenced her to 18 years in prison. This sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in June 2020 (with a forfeiture of about 6.3 billion won).
- Lee Jae-yong: In August 2017, he received a first-instance sentence of five years in prison, and in February 2018, the appellate court sentenced him to two years and six months in prison with four years of suspended sentence, and he was released. In August 2019, the Supreme Court held that three horses provided to Jeong Yu-ra and donations to the Korea Winter Sports Talent Center by Jang Si-ho's side should also be regarded as bribes, and remanded the case. On January 18, 2021, the remand appellate court recognized bribery and embezzlement of about 8.6 billion won, sentenced him to two years and six months in prison, and ordered him back into custody. He was granted parole on August 13, 2021, and was granted a special pardon and restoration of civil rights in August 2022.
- Ahn Jong-beom: In February 2018, he received a first-instance sentence of six years in prison and a fine of 100 million won. In August, the appellate court sentenced him to five years in prison and a fine of 60 million won. His work notebook, in which he recorded the president's instructions, became a key piece of evidence in the trial.
- Kim Ki-choon and Jo Yoon-sun (blacklist): On July 27, 2017, the first-instance court sentenced Kim Ki-choon to three years in prison, while Jo Yoon-sun was found guilty only of perjury before the National Assembly and was released with a suspended sentence. On January 23, 2018, the appellate court sentenced Kim Ki-choon to four years in prison and Jo Yoon-sun to two years in prison. On January 30, 2020, the Supreme Court remanded the case, holding that the scope of the abuse of authority charge must be examined more strictly. Jo Yoon-sun was also found guilty of coercion in the so-called "whitelist" case, in which she coerced support for conservative groups, and received a suspended sentence in October 2018.
- Shin Dong-bin, chairman of Lotte Group: A further contribution of 7 billion won to the K-Sports Foundation was recognized as a bribe related to the duty-free business. In February 2018, he received a first-instance sentence of two years and six months in prison and was placed in custody. In October, on appeal, he was released with a suspended sentence.
Points of Contention and Counterarguments
- Nature of the foundation contributions: Park Geun-hye and Choi Seo-won's side argued that the two foundations were legitimate policy projects to promote culture and sports and that companies contributed voluntarily. The courts found the charge that the Mir and K-Sports contributions were third-party bribery to be not guilty in the first and second trials of Lee Jae-yong and in the first trial of Park Geun-hye, instead holding that the president and the Blue House had demanded contributions by abusing their positions, which constituted abuse of authority. By contrast, the Supreme Court recognized as bribes the money Samsung provided for Jeong Yu-ra's equestrian activities and the Winter Sports Talent Center.
- Samsung's position: Samsung argued that its support was "passive," as it was difficult to refuse the president's demands, and that there was no request concerning succession. However, the Supreme Court held that there was an implied request related to the succession process.
- Tablet fabrication theory: In October 2016, Choi Seo-won claimed in a media interview that the tablet in question was not hers. Rep. Kim Jin-tae and some conservative groups raised the theory that JTBC had obtained the tablet and then created and inserted the files. Prosecutors examined photographs on the tablet showing Choi Seo-won herself and her acquaintances and concluded that she had used it. The fabrication claims were resolved as "no charges" in the investigation. A theft complaint against JTBC reporters was dismissed in July 2017 (with a partial re-investigation in 2018). Byun Hee-jae, the executive advisor of MediaWatch, who spread the fabrication theory through a book and articles, received a first-instance sentence of two years in prison in December 2018 for defamation under the Information and Communications Network Act, and in December 2025, the appellate court imposed the same sentence. Meanwhile, Choi Seo-won filed a lawsuit seeking the return of the tablet seized by investigators and, according to reports cited by the English Wikipedia, won on appeal in November 2025.
Impact
The case exposed the problem of "shadow power figures," in which the private influence of a president's confidant crossed into the formal state system. It led to large-scale candlelight protests and the first presidential removal in Korean constitutional history. During the trials, numerous precedents on abuse of authority, coercion, and collusion between government and business were established. The Federation of Korean Industries was criticized for serving as a fundraising channel, and major groups withdrew from it one after another. The culture blacklist later led to a government-level fact-finding investigation.
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