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.
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.
