SEOUL: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung nominated a five-term liberal lawmaker as defense minister Monday, breaking with a tradition of appointing retired military generals.
The announcement came as several prominent former defense officials, including ex-Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, face high-profile criminal trials over their roles in carrying out martial law last year under then-President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was indicted on rebellion charges and removed from office.
Ahn Gyu-back, a lawmaker from Lee’s Democratic Party, has served on the National Assembly’s defense committee and chaired a legislative panel that investigated the circumstances surrounding Yoon’s martial law decree.
Yoon’s authoritarian move involved deploying hundreds of heavily armed troops to the National Assembly and election commission offices in what prosecutors described as an illegal attempt to shut down the legislature and arrest political opponents and election officials.
That sparked calls to strengthen civilian control over the military, and Lee promised during his election campaign to appoint a defense minister with a civilian background.
Since a 1961 coup that brought military dictator Park Chung-hee to power, all of South Korea’s defense ministers have come from the military — a trend that continued even after the country’s democratization in the late 1980s.
While Ahn will face a legislative hearing, the process is likely to be a formality, since the Democrats hold a comfortable majority in the National Assembly and legislative consent isn’t required for Lee to appoint him. Among Cabinet appointments, Lee only needs legislative consent for prime minister, Seoul’s nominal No. 2 job.
“As the first civilian Minister of National Defense in 64 years, he will be responsible for leading and overseeing the transformation of the military after its mobilization in martial law,” Kang Hoon-sik, Lee’s chief of staff, said in a briefing.
Ahn was among 11 ministers nominated by Lee on Monday, with longtime diplomat Cho Hyun selected as foreign minister and five-term lawmaker Chung Dong-young returning for another stint as unification minister — a position he held from 2004 to 2005 as Seoul’s point man for relations with North Korea.
![]()
President Lee picks South Korea’s first civilian defense chief in 64 years
Short Url
https://arab.news/naux2
President Lee picks South Korea’s first civilian defense chief in 64 years
FBI fires more agents who worked on Trump classified document investigation
WASHINGTON: The FBI has fired additional agents who worked on an investigation into President Donald Trump, this time terminating employees who participated in the probe into the Republican’s hoarding of classified documents, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
The firings are part of a broader personnel purge under the leadership of Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee who, over the last year, has pushed out dozens of employees who either contributed to investigations of the president or who were perceived as not in alignment with the administration’s agenda. The Justice Department has engaged in similarly sweeping firings of prosecutors since Trump took office last year.
The FBI Agents Association condemned the firings as unlawful and endangering national security.
“These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals — ultimately putting the nation at greater risk,” the association said in a statement.
The latest round of terminations included employees who helped investigate Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, a case that involved a high-profile FBI search of the Florida property and resulted in a federal prosecution charging the now-president with holding onto top-secret records from his first term in office and obstructing government efforts to get them back.
The firings were confirmed to The Associated Press by multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on anonymity because they could not publicly discuss the personnel moves. Several of the people said a total of 10 employees were fired, and one said at least 10 were fired.
The FBI has also fired agents who participated in a separate investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That investigation also led to criminal charges, but like the Mar-a-Lago case, was abandoned by special counsel Jack Smith after Trump won the White House in November 2024 because of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
The firings were revealed on the same day that Patel was quoted as telling Reuters the FBI during the Biden administration had subpoenaed his phone records and those of current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Patel said the action had occurred in 2022 and 2023 when they were private citizens.
Patel was subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in 2022 to testify before a grand jury in Washington in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and appeared after being given immunity, the AP has previously reported.
The firings are part of a broader personnel purge under the leadership of Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee who, over the last year, has pushed out dozens of employees who either contributed to investigations of the president or who were perceived as not in alignment with the administration’s agenda. The Justice Department has engaged in similarly sweeping firings of prosecutors since Trump took office last year.
The FBI Agents Association condemned the firings as unlawful and endangering national security.
“These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals — ultimately putting the nation at greater risk,” the association said in a statement.
The latest round of terminations included employees who helped investigate Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, a case that involved a high-profile FBI search of the Florida property and resulted in a federal prosecution charging the now-president with holding onto top-secret records from his first term in office and obstructing government efforts to get them back.
The firings were confirmed to The Associated Press by multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on anonymity because they could not publicly discuss the personnel moves. Several of the people said a total of 10 employees were fired, and one said at least 10 were fired.
The FBI has also fired agents who participated in a separate investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That investigation also led to criminal charges, but like the Mar-a-Lago case, was abandoned by special counsel Jack Smith after Trump won the White House in November 2024 because of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
The firings were revealed on the same day that Patel was quoted as telling Reuters the FBI during the Biden administration had subpoenaed his phone records and those of current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Patel said the action had occurred in 2022 and 2023 when they were private citizens.
Patel was subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in 2022 to testify before a grand jury in Washington in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and appeared after being given immunity, the AP has previously reported.
Latest updates
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.