‘Dior Gate,’ Enthralling South Korea Handbag Scandal Involving the President’s Glamorous Wife, Limps to a Conclusion

Dior never got so much free advertising in Korea for its line of super-luxury handbags, but now it looks like the fun is nearing an end.No matter how much the leftist opposition would love to ensnare the wife of South Korea’s president for accepting a gift of a light blue calfskin Dior bag valued at about $2,200, prosecutors say they’re not going to pursue the case.That decision comes more than two years after a far-leftist Korean-American pastor, Choi Jae-young, a.k.a. “Abraham Choi,” met Korea’s first lady, Kim Keon-hee, and handed her the bag in what he proudly described as an attempt to expose her “true character” as a woman willing to accept a handout or a bribe. In a classic case of entrapment, Mr. Choi recorded the handover on a hidden camera in a wristwatch given him by a leftist website, Voice of Seoul, which also supplied the bag.Mr. Choi, who has visited North Korea many times and regularly speaks out in defense of the North, has had a ready, if disingenuous, explanation for deceiving Ms. Kim into accepting what she assumed was a gift that her husband later said was difficult to politely refuse. The ruse was “an undercover form of reporting,” Mr. Choi explained, to show “the true character” of the president and his wife. But why had he waited more than a year to publicize the incident? It was after seeing her “inappropriately interfering in state affairs by meddling in government appointments,” he has said that he “decided to record the first lady’s acceptance of his gift” to show how she is “concentrating and privately exploiting the president’s authority for herself.”Just because the case is going nowhere in court does not mean it hasn’t worked for foes of South Korea’s conservative regime. The opposition Minju, or democratic, party, which holds a substantial majority in the national assembly, has been using it constantly to show the corruption in the highest ranks of the Yoon government while President Yoon, a former prosecutor, is spurring his own prosecutors to go after more serious charges against his Minju foes.The Minju has reaped so many headlines from “the case of the Dior bag” that it’s not quite giving up. Rather, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News, Minju members are demanding a “special counsel investigation” of “irregularities” of which the first lady is accused.Mr. Yoon has vetoed a bill passed by the national assembly calling for investigation of just about everything to do with his wife, including financial manipulation and influence-peddling, but that’s not stopping the Minju from going after the first couple. Without going through a ritual apology, Mr. Yoon is acknowledging his wife’s “behavior” was “unwise,” Yonhap said, while promising “to ensure such incidents do not happen again.”

‘Dior Gate,’ Enthralling South Korea Handbag Scandal Involving the President’s Glamorous Wife, Limps to a Conclusion

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