by Greg Piper
Trial started Friday against U.S. citizen Morse Tan for his 2025 remarks in D.C. about criminal allegations against South Korea's president as a minor. "I believe the content regarding President Lee is true," Tan reportedly told the trial.
President Trump's first-term U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice went on trial Friday in South Korea for criminal defamation charges, stemming from his inflammatory comments – on American soil — about South Korea's president 16 months earlier.
America's putative ally quickly banned Morse Tan from leaving the country at all when he arrived as an election monitor this spring, with the country's courts citing him as a flight risk, causing Tan to miss his grandmother's funeral this month.
Yet American mainstream media have been eerily quiet for the past five months about the criminal proceedings against Tan, a former law school dean at Liberty University, whose former president gave candidate Donald Trump an early political boost with evangelicals.
This is despite months of high-profile interventions by federal lawmakers including current and former House Foreign Affairs Committee leaders, recurring coverage in Christian publications, and the stark divide between the countries on legal protections for political speech.
The National Association of Christian Lawmakers is activating its network "to help bring attention to his situation," which has received "almost no substantive reporting" from major U.S. TV networks or national news outlets, and "encourage appropriate diplomatic action," chief legal officer Bob Ballinger told Just the News Thursday.
"Whatever one's opinion of Tan's statements," which referred to contested reports of criminal behavior by President Lee Jae Myung as a minor, "the treatment of an American citizen over speech made in America deserves national scrutiny," Ballinger said.
I am deeply concerned by the South Korean government's continued exit ban on former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Morse Tan & urge for his release. The U.S.-ROK relationship is built on more than 70 years of mutual trust & respect, & we cannot allow this issue to overshadow our enduring alliance. https://t.co/CFpjOFeH3j
— Young Kim (@RepYoungKim) August 19, 2026
Tan's unnamed lawyer sought the indictment's dismissal on the trial's first day, arguing South Korean courts don't have jurisdiction over a U.S. citizen for comments on U.S. soil, and even if they did, "there was no disclosure of false facts, nor was there any awareness that the statements were false" or "intent to defame," SBS News reported.
"I believe the content regarding President Lee is true," Tan said for himself in the trial, pleading not guilty and introducing himself as a social activist, according to SBS.
The proceeding is a "show trial" that could land him seven years in prison, Tan told the Daily Caller, one of the only secular U.S. media outlets to show an interest, last month. As President Trump's former ambassador, Tan's ordeal is "a punch in Trump's face," he said.
The State Department told the conservative publication it "stands ready to raise our concerns directly with foreign governments when they use criminal defamation or similar laws to punish U.S. citizens for political speech,” especially "for statements made in the United States," but declined to speak about Tan's case specifically.
"The U.S. side requested a smooth resolution despite our explanation of legal enforcement," Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee meeting Aug. 18 when Tan's case was mentioned, The Chosun Daily reported.
A lawmaker had asked Cho about a House Foreign Affairs Committee letter days earlier protesting Tan's prosecution. "This was not a protest but an effort to address disagreements in South Korea-U.S. relations step by step," Cho said.
Morse H. Tan: Three successive travel bans have been imposed on me because I have been leading the counterrevolutionary movement against the communizing coup d’état and the subsequent purge currently happening in South Korea. @MorseHTan https://t.co/7474fTeNcR
— Bannon’s WarRoom (@Bannons_WarRoom) August 6, 2026
Tan's plight recalls the arrest of Irish comedian Graham Linehan, creator of the cross-Atlantic hit British sitcoms Father Ted and The IT Crowd, upon arrival to the U.K. for criticizing gender ideology months earlier in America. That prompted Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage to warn Americans with similarly stated views they could be arrested on U.K. visits.
America's progenitor hasn't stopped at written or spoken words in criminalizing speech, launching multiple criminal proceedings against pro-life activist Isabel Spruce-Vaughan for silently praying near abortion clinics. She pleaded not guilty to the latest charges this month and faces trial in January.
Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias, who is trying to import foreign speech codes into the U.S., recently threatened North Carolina's North State Journal with a defamation lawsuit for asking the reelection campaign of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper whether the 69-year-old has any health problems that might interfere with another term, as did President Biden.
'It is said' president was involved in horrific crimes as youth
Tan called South Korea a "rising dictatorship" at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2025, and told the Christian Post this August that the country suffers "massive infiltration by Chinese Communist Party and North Korean spies, operatives and agents."
But his real troubles started at a Washington, D.C., press conference in June 2025 on alleged fraud in South Korea's presidential election weeks earlier, hosted by the Korean Conservative Political Action Conference, which partners with CPAC.
"We're talking about somebody who has had 12 lawsuits filed against him, five that are still going on," Tan said, referring to President Lee, and "a corrupt system" that blocks Lee's prosecution "as president unless he's exonerated."
"I don't think [this] has gotten a lot of coverage, but it is said" that the president, "as a youth, was involved in gang raping and murdering a young lady and as a result was put in juvenile detention and therefore was not able to attend junior high," Tan said.
The second defamation charge refers to Tan answering "a series of questions" about his prior comments at a public event in South Korea in July of this year, he told the Daily Caller.
The indictment filed against Tan says prosecutors checked Lee's juvenile detention records, which are "not publicly disclosed except for judicial or investigative purposes," and determined Tan's claims were false, Korea JoongAng Daily reported in July.
Newswire AFP deemed the allegations "baseless" but cut off Tan's quote, which used the Trumpian passive phrasing "it is said," to portray Tan as personally accusing Lee of crimes. AFP said the claims have been "previously disproven in court."
'Could change perceptions' of South Korea's adherence to 'rule of law'
"We have significant concerns" about South Korea's exit ban on Tan, "who thankfully remains in good health and positive spirits" as verified by a congressional delegation that met with him in July, House Foreign Affairs East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee Chair Young Kim, R-Calif., wrote to Korean Ambassador Kang Kyung-wha Aug. 13.
After arriving in the country as an election monitor in a "privately organized effort," according to Kim, "Tan faced remarkably unfair treatment" from the government over his statements, raising "serious concerns about freedom of expression and due process."
He spoke as "a private American citizen while in the United States," Kim wrote. His First Amendment rights "must be respected" or South Korea's behavior "could affect perceptions" of the country's adherence to "representative government, individual liberty, freedom of expression, and the rule of law."
GOP Reps. Brian Mast, of Florida, and Chris Smith, of New Jersey, the current and former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairs, respectively, also signed the letter along with fellow Republican Rep. Michael Cloud, of Texas, who serves on the Oversight Committee's Foreign Affairs Subcommittee.
Without referring to Tan, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote to Korea Media and Communications Commission Chair Kim Jong-cheol a week before Kim's letter to the Korean ambassador, to express concerns about how Korean law could chill American speech.
When the National Assembly amended the Information and Communications Network Act last year, it gave courts the "unprecedented power to punish news outlets and social media users for spreading 'false or manipulated information' and extract damage awards of up to five times any alleged harm," Jordan wrote.
The change also gave the commission power to impose roughly $656,000 in fines on news outlets and users that it deems to have spread such information, Jordan said, seeking a briefing with the commission "to better understand the KMCC’s approach to enforcing this law."
Former Kansas GOP Sen. Sam Brownback, first-term President Trump's former ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, blasted South Korea for its "shocking" treatment of his former colleague last month.
"If he were traveling to North Korea or Russia, I wouldn't be surprised at all" by the exit ban, Brownback told the Christian Post. Brownback said he's "really concerned" about the country's arrests and prosecutions of religious leaders, which is "a horrible trend line for that democracy."
Greg Piper
Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/south-korea-traps-prosecutes-ex-trump-ambassador-comments-us-soil-american-media
No comments:
Post a Comment