It is normal for a president to clash with members of opposition parties, especially those with different political inclinations, over reform measures. President Lee Jae Myung, however, is having an unusual conflict — one against members of his own party and other liberal figures. The conflict is over the nomination of Kim Ji-yong, a former prosecutor, to be the inaugural chief of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency (SCIA). The new investigative body was established as part of prosecutorial reform, dividing the prosecutors’ office into SCIA in charge of probing serious crimes and the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) tasked with indicting suspects and prosecuting cases. The nomination on Sept. 8, however, turned the long-awaited prosecution reform into the focus of an increasingly bitter internal conflict, as hardliners from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), the minor liberal Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP) and elsewhere in the liberal bloc argue that his record of defending prosecutorial powers makes him unfit to serve as its inaugural chief. They also label Kim a loyalist