[Special Report on Dec 3rd Insurrection] “Yoon Suk-yoel declared martial law for his wife”: Yoon’s former aides reveal the truth

Unresolved Riddle: The Three Great Mysteries of Dec 3rd Martial Law

“Listen carefully. The martial law has succeeded. Don’t say anything to anyone around you. I’m saying this for your own good. Lee Jae-myung is finished, and Han Dong-hoon is finished.”

On the night of December 3, 2024, A, who had worked in Yoon Suk-yeol’s presidential campaign, received this phone call from a figure referred to as part of the “First Lady’s line.” A remembers the conversation vividly.

“They advised me not to go around speaking critically of President Yoon Suk-yeol. It was only about ten minutes after the martial law was declared, yet they were incredibly calm. It was as if they had already known martial law would be declared and understood how things would unfold afterwards. I was dumbfounded.”

In short, this suggests that there were more people than previously known who were aware of the plan to implement martial law even before former President Yoon declared the state of emergency at 10:27 p.m. that night. Was First Lady Kim Keon-hee among them?

Not only A, but the entire nation was in a state where shock and fury intersected from the moment the chilling martial law proclamation took effect that night until the early morning of December 4, when it was lifted. Over the four seasons that followed, former President Yoon was arrested and impeached, and the three special counsel teams launched in parallel are now nearing the end of their investigations.

Yet several fundamental questions surrounding the martial law remain unresolved.

The “Annals of the Yoon Suk-yeol Era” reporting team met with dozens of people—advisers and ministers of Yoon Suk-yeol government, campaign staffers, those in the so-called “First Lady’s line,” and informal “shadow” figures—to hear their views on martial law. Of course, most of them were only observers when it came to the martial law itself, but as people who had watched the former president up close, the team judged that their perspectives would still be meaningful.

The first question the reporters put to them was naturally this:

1. “Why on earth did former President Yoon decide to impose martial law?”

The sudden martial law, fortunately, came to an end just six hours later thanks to the swift and active response of the National Assembly and citizens, and the slow and passive response of the martial law forces. But the doubts about Yoon’s motives remain. The superficial reasons he put forward—such as “investigating electoral fraud”—are, no matter how you look at them, not persuasive.

His key former aide, B, voiced the reason many had only quietly suspected.

"All of us (former aides) think he imposed martial law because of the First Lady. Election fraud conspiracies? Who believes that kind of insanity? A series of impeachments by the Democratic Party of Korea? That’s not something that suddenly popped up yesterday or today. People who understood the inner workings of power and the broader political situation at the time all think it was because of the First Lady.”

In other words, it means former President Yoon is thought to have imposed martial law in order to neutralize the “Kim Keon-hee legal risk.”

Kim Bong-sik, former chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, who had gone into the presidential compound in Samcheong-dong three hours before the martial law declaration to receive related instructions, also stated to investigators that “former President Yoon mentioned ‘family matters’ as a reason for declaring martial law.”

In reality, the presidential couple was standing on the edge of a cliff at that time. The National Assembly was about to hold a re-vote on the “Kim Keon-hee special prosecutor bill,” and the then-ruling People Power Party was in no state to block it due to internal divisions. B said, “At the time, the pro–Han Dong-hoon faction was leaving open the possibility that they might make a different choice in the re-vote scheduled for December 10, so the likelihood of the special prosecutor bill passing was growing.”

Campaign staffer C, who had been active in the presidential campaign, also said:

“It’s clear that the declaration of martial law was used as a last resort to resolve the Kim Keon-hee special prosecutor bill, the Myeong Tae-gyun Gate, and other Kim Keon-hee–related risks. You can’t quantify how many percent of the reason it was, but the aspect of trying to eliminate Kim Keon-hee’s risk in one stroke, or as a final backlash, was extremely significant.”

Another former aide, D, did not dismiss the “Kim Keon-hee motive theory” either. However, he believed it was not the only cause.

“At the time, former President Yoon’s approval rating was in the 10-percent range, so nobody in the public sector was willing to move for him, right? In that situation, things like a parliamentary investigation, a special prosecutor bill targeting Kim Keon-hee, and so on were all bearing down on him brutally. On top of that, the Myeong Tae-gyun scandal broke out, the auditor general and prosecutors investigating Kim Keon-hee were impeached in succession, and to make matters worse, Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party, was found not guilty in the first trial of his perjury-instigation case. What escape route did he have? From former President Yoon’s perspective, martial law was a desperate struggle to survive. Of course, it was a profoundly wrong method.”

Lee Jun-seok, leader of the Reform New Party, who had clashed head-on with former President Yoon, added a somewhat psychological analysis.

“As time passed, people could no longer get close to former President Yoon. So he must have felt lonely. After the assassination of Yuk Young-soo, former First Lady, former President Park Chung-hee also felt deep loneliness. Loneliness can drive a person in unpredictable directions. I sensed some signs that he might take extreme action.”

This line of thinking is no longer a “minority view.” The special counsel team investigating insurrection is also working on the premise that resolving the Kim Keon-hee risk may have been the real reason for martial law, and is now focusing most of its remaining investigative resources there.

2. Did Kim Keon-hee Know About the Martial Law in Advance?

Whether the First Lady knew about the martial law beforehand is a crucial issue, because it is connected to the possibility that she may have been involved in or encouraged the decision. She insists, “I did not know about the state of emergency beforehand.” On the day the martial law was declared, she entered a plastic surgery clinic at 6:25 p.m. and stayed there until 9:30 p.m., just before the announcement. This timeline has been used as circumstantial evidence to support her claim.

E, who was close to the First Lady, is inclined to believe her claim. He said:

“The day after martial law, Kim Keon-hee called and said, ‘I didn’t know they were going to declare martial law, and if I had known, I would have tried to stop it.’”

E continued:

“Right after the martial law, I called everyone in the ‘First Lady’s line,’ and not a single person said they had known about it in advance. Judging by that, I think the First Lady really didn’t know beforehand.”

Former aide F held a similar view.

“I think the First Lady really didn’t know about the martial law. I met someone from the First Lady’s office the day after it happened and asked, ‘What on earth is going on?’ They said, ‘If you look at the pre-arranged schedule for the First Lady for that week, you can easily tell she had no idea martial law was coming. If she’d expected it, there’s no way you could set up that kind of schedule.’”

Former Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min also testified as a witness at the Constitutional Court on February 11. When asked, “Do you remember former President Yoon saying, ‘I’m going to declare martial law. Even my wife doesn’t know. If she finds out, she’ll be furious’?” he answered, “Yes, he clearly said that.”

However, the counterarguments are also formidable. A high-ranking official G from the Yoon administration said:

“Former President Yoon basically shared almost everything with the First Lady. The idea that he would carry out martial law behind her back is inconceivable.”

H, who had served as an aide in the presidential office in Yongsan, also asserted:

“To interpret the fact that the First Lady went to a plastic surgery clinic on the day of martial law as proof she didn’t know in advance makes no sense. Former President Yoon talks a lot—he has a very loose tongue. There is simply no way he could pull off martial law without her knowing.”

H’s claim carries the implication that the First Lady may have gone to the clinic on purpose, in order to create an alibi that she was unaware of the plan to declare martial law.

The earlier account from A also fits this pattern: the idea that if someone in the “First Lady’s line” knew about martial law beforehand, then of course the First Lady herself must have known.

The fact that the First Lady was exchanging text messages with Cho Tae-yong, then director of the National Intelligence Service, around the time martial law was declared is another suspicious point. It has been revealed that the First Lady sent two text messages to Cho the day before martial law and received a reply the next day, when it was declared. During his Constitutional Court testimony, Cho refused to disclose the content of the messages, but when asked, “Isn’t it unusual for the NIS director and First Lady to exchange texts on the day before and the day of martial law?” he replied, “It’s not something that happens often.” Cho is one of the figures confirmed to have known about the state of emergency in advance.

The claim of conservative politician I also supports the theory that Kim Keon-hee knew beforehand.

“I heard from someone who visited former President Yoon in prison that the First Lady had tried to dissuade him. When former President Yoon said it would be a ‘messaging-style martial law,’ she responded, ‘How does that make any sense? As soon as people hear “martial law,” they’ll think of Chun Doo-hwan and Park Chung-hee.’ Even so, after seeing the auditor general get impeached, former President Yoon reportedly felt, ‘This is too much,’ and went ahead with it.”

The fact that she tried to stop the martial law is certainly a factor in the First Lady’s favor. But looked at another way, it also implies she was aware of the plan in advance.

3. Why That Day?

The question of why a weekday (Tuesday) was chosen as “D-Day” also remains a major point of suspicion. Had martial law been declared on a weekend, when many lawmakers had returned to their constituencies, it would have been much easier to block the National Assembly and prevent a vote to lift martial law, making its success more likely. Moreover, had he waited just one more week—until after the regular National Assembly session ended on December 10—then it would have been even harder for the legislature to mount a defense.

Nonetheless, former President Yoon chose to declare martial law on a day when a resolution demanding its termination could be easily passed, thereby inviting failure.

Yoon’s camp has explained this by saying, “It was meant as a warning-style martial law, so the date wasn’t important.” But many people remain unconvinced. This is why the so-called “chosen date theory” has not died down. Throughout his term, the presidential couple had already been plagued by “shamanism controversies” involving various “masters” such as Geonjin (Jeon Seong-bae), Cheon-gong, and Myeong Tae-gyun. The fact that Noh Sang-won(Burger Oracle), the shadow figure behind the martial law, ran a shamanism shop further fueled suspicion.

J, who served as a minister in the Yoon administration, said:

“According to people around him, the atmosphere at the time was that former President Yoon was saying things like, ‘We can’t change the date for martial law. We’re just doing it on Tuesday no matter what. Don’t argue.’ There’s no way to explain that without assuming the involvement of some ‘non-scientific’ element.”

Some in political circles, such as Democratic Party lawmaker Noh Jong-myeon, have even claimed that December 3 was chosen because it marked exactly 1,000 days since Yoon’s presidential election victory on March 9, 2022.

There is also the analysis that former President Yoon and the military officers who led the martial law simply did not properly understand how the National Assembly system works. In this view, they did not realize how easily martial law could be lifted and therefore declared it on a weekday without much thought.

Regarding this, J said, “At that time, the date itself probably didn’t matter much to former President Yoon,” and offered the following explanation:

“By then, former President Yoon was no longer in a state where you could judge his decisions by ‘common sense.’ From that perspective, it’s not all that strange that the chosen date was ‘irrational.’ And to him, the date itself wasn’t important. Why? Because former President Yoon never imagined that martial law would fail. He didn’t even conceive of a ‘Plan B.’”

Kim Jong-in, former general election campaign chair of the People Power Party, who had left the “Yoon Suk-yeol camp” after clashing with him, had a similar assessment.

“Former President Yoon’s thinking is simple. So he must have believed that once he declared martial law, it would certainly succeed.”

He went on to speculate about what would have happened afterward

“Even if the martial law had succeeded, he would have been ousted within a month or two. Of course, public resistance would have been fierce, and his approval rating would have dropped to rock bottom. When that happened, what do you think the real forces behind the martial law—the military figures like Kim Yong-hyun who egged him on—would have thought? They’d have said, ‘Why keep this unpopular president around?’ and gotten rid of him.”: