Live: Clashes over whether Pres. Yoon ordered "agents" or "lawmakers" to be removed from Parliament

Thank you for joining us. I'm Yoon Jung-min.

President Yoon appeared at the Constitutional Court today for the sixth hearing of his impeachment trial, where more key witnesses turned up to testify.

Our Oh Soo-young joins us live to bring the latest.

Q1. Soo-young, the sixth trial hearing started in the morning as opposed to the afternoon, and lasted around 8 hours with some fierce rounds of questioning.

That's right.

There were strong clashes over the key question today which was: whether President Yoon had ordered the physical removal of lawmakers from Parliament with Yoon himself making a counterargument.

Fiery exchanges were made as former Army Special Warfare Commander Kwak Jong-geun delivered his testimony, at the request of the National Assembly's impeachment panel.

His previous statement contradicts the claims of President Yoon and former Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun that the military was ordered to pull out military "agents" rather than "lawmakers" from the National Assembly.

Kwak firmly maintained his position that, in his phone call with Yoon, he understood the President told him to remove legislators.

"At the time, the 707th Special Mission forces were in a stand-off and weren't inside the main building. Since I received the call in that context, I naturally assumed he was referring to National Assembly members and understood it that way."

Then, with questions fired over his choice of words, he admitted the President told him to pull out the numbers or "in-won" , not legislators or "ui-won" inside the National Assembly.

To this President Yoon himself spoke out.

Yoon also refuted the former commander's claim that the President and the Defense Minister did not want the number of legislators in the Assembly to reach 150 the number of votes needed to pass a motion to revoke martial law.

He accused Kwak of conspiring to impeach him, with First Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service Hong Jang-won, who also testified unfavorably for Yoon.

Kim Hyun-tae, commander of the 707th Special Mission Battalion, who led the break-in at the National Assembly, also testified on Thursday.

He said Commander Kwak Jong-geun did say the number of people should not exceed 150 – but noted Kwak seemed to be relaying instructions from a higher authority, rather than issuing a command.

Kim said he did not receive any orders to remove or restrict the movement of legislators in the National Assembly, but to lock down the building.

Also standing witness was Presidential Secretary for Economic Affairs Park Chun-seop.

He suggested that the opposition-led parliament's impeachment of various state officials, unilateral legislation, and slashing of the government budget comprehensively motivated Yoon's martial law.

Yoon has claimed these factors led to a state of national emergency, justifying his decree.

The National Assembly's impeachment panel co-chair Kim Yi-su accused the President of changing his stance throughout the trial, and solely focused on finding statements that were advantageous to him.

Meanwhile Soo-young the hearings are set to end next Thursday.

Are we looking at a possible extension of these hearings?

With only two sessions left, it looks likely that the Court will have to schedule more hearing dates beyond February 13th.

The Court announced on Thursday, it selected an additional witness to testify:

Cho Sung-hyun, Commander of the 1st Security Group under the Capital Defence Command.

The decision comes after Capital Defense Commander Lee Jin-woo, a key witness in Tuesday's hearing, refused to answer crucial questions to verify the orders that were given, including by President Yoon Suk Yeol on the evening of December 3rd.

According to prosecutors, Cho relayed orders by Lee Jin-woo to forcibly remove lawmakers, and ordered troops to assist the Special Warfare Command in clearing a passage to do so.

His testimony is scheduled for next Thursday at 5 PM.

All right. Thank you for the latest on the impeachment trial.