earlier. He was tried, convicted—and pardoned.
But as the weeks went on, the prosecutors learned how enmeshed
Samsung was in this web of corruption. Jay needed his kingdom. Buy a
horse, it appeared to investigators, and get a merger. As the protests and
media coverage raged, the government knew it had to respond. Jay, the
“reformer,” was suddenly persona non grata, a target in an investigation by
South Korean prosecutors and, even more, the subject of an unheard-of
grilling in Parliament.
A parliamentary hearing isn’t the same as an indictment or a grand jury
investigation. It carries no criminal charges. It was merely a request by
Parliament, in the face of the intense public anger, for Jay and other
business leaders to testify, to which they acquiesced.
“Are you indeed an accomplice?” a lawmaker asked Jay Lee, who sat,
visibly nervous and meek, in the parliamentary hearing on December 5. It
was an unprecedented event and fully televised, bringing the heretofore
untouchable business leader and South Korean lawmakers together in one
room to challenge Samsung’s corporate behavior.
“Do you promise to cut ties between big business and politics?”
Jay Lee waffled, dodging the question.
“Promise clearly,” the livid politician commanded. “Apologize to the
people!”
As the grilling went on, Jay paused and hesitated, his denials issued in
rapid-fire bursts, his eyes darting around the room.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember. I don’t know.” He claimed
that he learned about the scheme after it happened.
“Jay Y. Lee seems like he has memory problems,” a viewer texted to
the show on her phone. “Maybe someone more capable should be in his
position?”
The hearing went on for hours, captivating the nation. It was the subject
of gossip everywhere I went that day. When the interrogators took a recess,
it seemed as if Jay Lee had escaped the total annihilation of his image. But
prosecutors were not done with him.
The investigation into the scandal went on for more than a month.
According to prosecutors, Jay bribed Choi Soon-sil, the president’s
confidante, with $38 million to finance her Olympic horse-racing project.
On January 17 a cavalcade of black cars pulled up outside a Seoul