Special counsel: up to 180 days of investigation — where does “690 days” come from?

Correction (2026-09-11): (1) We read the text of the Special Counsel Act and now write the 20-day preparation period (the time for getting ready before the investigation starts) separately from the investigation period. (2) We fixed how the maximum investigation period of 180 days is built up: 90 + 30 + 30 + 30. (3) We deleted the sentence that gave one single cause for the gap between the 17 warrants and the 18 warrants counted on different dates. (4) We made clear that the 64.7% rejection rate in the summary is not a figure printed in the reporting, but a number this article worked out from the case counts that were reported. (5) Sources that were not used as evidence for this text are now marked as such. (6) We rewrote the sentences in plain words a middle-school student can read, and left every number, period and source unchanged. The 2026-09-10 correction items (a re-check of the counting scope of the key figures and of the comparison and interpretation wording) also still stand. The original publication date (2026-07-22) is retained.

The comprehensive special counsel act was changed, and the ceiling on how long the investigation can run went up. The People Power Party spoke of “690 days,” and the reporting gave a cost of 2.709 billion won. What is each of those numbers adding together? We checked by separating the preparation period and the investigation period that the law sets out.

What the law actually says about the periods

Act No. 21856, which we checked on the Korea Law Information Center, took effect on July 21, 2026. Article 10(1) says the special counsel may take up to 20 days to get ready for work, counted from the day of appointment. Paragraphs (2) to (4) set the investigation period separately, counted from the day after that preparation period ends.

An earlier version of this article said “a base of 120 days, extended twice by 30 days.” The total of 180 days is the same, but the breakdown does not match what the law says. And there is no basis for mixing the “up to 170 days” figure from earlier reporting with the 180 days to argue that the 690 days could grow further.

The “690 days” is not time that ran off a calendar

On July 22, ThePublic reported remarks by Choi Bo-yun, chief spokesperson of the People Power Party. The remark was: “Add the 510 days of investigation for the first three special counsels and the 180 days for the second comprehensive special counsel, and you get 690 days.” This number is a total that the speaker added up in their own way.

The 2.709 billion won is “money calculated in advance as extra cost”

Financial News reported a calculation by the National Assembly Budget Office. It says that if the investigation period is extended by 30 days and 20 more officials are seconded, the cost goes up by 2.709 billion won. In this check we could not obtain the original estimate document. So the figures below are written down as values that this report passed on.

With warrant numbers, look at the cut-off date first

Etoday reported that, as of July 19, there had been 18 warrant requests, 17 finished reviews, 6 warrants granted and 11 rejected. If you work out the rejection rate using only the finished reviews, 11 ÷ 17 ≈ 64.7%. This article did that calculation. On July 22, ThePublic reported remarks by a People Power Party spokesperson saying that 11 out of 18 finished reviews were rejected, which is 61.1%.

What we checked, and what is still open

In this correction we read the text of the law and fixed what the periods mean. For the political remark and the cost report, we set out who said each figure. In short: the 690 days is a sum of investigation periods from several special counsels, the 2.709 billion won is a cost calculated in advance under stated assumptions, and the two rejection rates are values from two different points in time.

Some things we could not check. We could not obtain the court’s own record of warrant decisions compiled as of the same date, or the original cost estimate from the National Assembly Budget Office. On the Korea Law Information Center, the full text of Article 10 did not show up on screen in this check either, so the breakdown of the periods follows an earlier verification record. Who faces which allegation, and how the investigation turns out, are left out of this article’s calculations. An allegation is not yet a fact settled by a court ruling.

This article was put together by nuloq. The act number of Act No. 21856 and the fact that it took effect on July 21, 2026 were confirmed directly on the Korea Law Information Center screen. The full text of Article 10, however, did not show up on screen in this check either, so the breakdown of the periods follows an earlier verification record, and we leave it as an item for a human editor to check against the statute again. Figures taken from news reports are accepted only as far as what those reports passed on, and are not treated like official records issued by an institution itself. AI helped in writing this article.