In a recent Secure Freedom Minute, CHQ contributor Frank Gaffney noted that President Trump has expressed frustration with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae Myung, over his unwillingness to help the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz. In response, American participation in annual military exercises with the Republic of Korea has been cut back.
Mr. Trump is right to be upset with Lee, but has plenty of other reasons -- and a more pointed and desirable vehicle for expressing it, wrote Mr. Gaffney. The South Korean president is a Communist, fraudulently elected and moving aggressively to transform his country from a thriving, pro-American democracy into a despotic state aligned with Beijing and Pyongyang.
Dede Laugesen, President & CEO, Save the Persecuted Christians further explained, Ambassador Tan, who served with distinction as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice during President Trump’s first administration, has been trapped in South Korea since he landed there at the start of June — barred from coming home by an exit ban the government of President Lee Jae Myung has now extended twice. Seoul has set September 11 as the date it intends to put an American diplomat on trial.
Tan’s actual “crime” is remarks he made at the National Press Club in Washington in June 2025 — on American soil, protected by the First Amendment, and, by South Korea’s own legal code, protected there too. Seoul is prosecuting an American diplomat for exercising free speech in the United States. That is not how allies treat one another. That is the conduct of a government sliding toward authoritarianism.
As the following new open letter to President Trump sponsored by the Committee on the Present Danger: China makes clear, he can and should rebuke Lee by insisting on the freeing of a former top Trump diplomat, Ambassador Morse Tan, being held hostage in Seoul. That must end now.
Hon. Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We write to ensure that you are aware of both what appears to be a deliberate and offensive personal slight to you as well as fresh evidence of quite ominous strategic developments for our national security.
Nearly two months ago, the South Korean government of President Lee Jae Myung prevented the return to America of a man who served with great distinction as our Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in your first administration: Ambassador Morse Tan. He has effectively been a political hostage ever since with the original exit ban extended twice, currently through at least the middle of August.
To add insult to injury, the Ambassador has been indicted for having “defamed” President Lee during remarks in June 2025 at the National Press Club in Washington. Needless to say, such speech is protected by our Constitution. In fact, it is by current South Korean legal code, as well.
Consequently, the Lee regime’s ongoing persecution of Amb. Tan is not only an outrageous human rights abuse. It is, if anything, validating the concerns that this former senior diplomat and a growing number of others have been raising about the alarming and increasingly totalitarian transformation now underway in the Republic of Korea, one of our most important allies and security partners in East Asia.
We urge you to engage at once with President Lee to impress upon him that such mistreatment of one of your people and his increasing repression at home and realigning abroad with Communist China and North Korea – of which the Tan travesty is but one manifestation – are unacceptable to the United States. He must be made to understand that such activities can prove extremely inimical to our important bilateral relationship, especially at a time when South Korea is pursuing extensive commercial and military shipbuilding deals with our country.
Please act to secure Amb. Tan’s release from the RoK without further delay and to prevent further bilateral strains at a time when our two nations require more than ever a robust and mutually dedicated stance against our mutual enemies’ regional aggression.
Sincerely,
Paul Berkowitz, Researcher; retired U.S. congressional staff; U.S. Air Force Reserve
Capt. Stu Cvrk, U.S. Navy (Ret.) Organizer and Facilitator, South Dakota Grassroots Coalition of Counties
Hon. Robert Destro, former Assistant Secretary of State, Professor Emeritus of Law, The Catholic University of America
Dr. William Devlin, Director, Widows and Orphans
Hon./Lt. Col. Chuck DeVore, U.S. Army (Ret.)
Constance V. Elliott, Member, Committee on the Present Danger: China
Capt. James R. Everett III, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Hulda Fahmi, Communications Associate, Jubilee Campaign
Capt. James Fanell, U.S. Navy (Ret.), former Chief of Intelligence and Information Operations, U.S. Pacific Fleet
Frank J. Gaffney, Vice Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China; former Assistant Secretary of Defense (Acting)
Ellen Grigsby, Director of Strategic Relationships, Frontlines International
Suzanne Bock Grishman, Executive Director, Mercury One and The Nazarene Fund
Carolyn P. Hieronymus, Christians in Crisis
Elisabeth Hiltabrand, Christians in Crisis
Brian T. Kennedy, Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China
Philip Lark, Professor, Cyber Security Studies, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies
Dede Laugesen, President & CEO, Save the Persecuted Christians
Col. Rob Maness, U.S. Air Force (Ret.); CEO and Owner, Iron Liberty Group LLC
Bart Marcois, Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs
Tidal “Ty” McCoy, Former Secretary of the Air Force (Acting)
Barbara McElroy, Member, Christians in Crisis
Roxann Moss, Director of Administration, Christians in Crisis
Col. Grant F. Newsham, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
George Parker, Executive Director, Revealing Light Ministries
Dr. Jorge Parrott, President, CMM.World
George K. Rasley Jr., Managing Editor, ConservativeHQ.com
Suzanne Scholte, Chairman, North Korea Freedom Coalition
Capt. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Nina Shea, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Religious Freedom, Hudson Institute
Dr. Karen Siegemund, President, American Freedom Alliance
Dr. Bradley Thayer, Fellow, American Freedom Alliance
Wendy Wright, President/CEO, Christian Freedom International
Liz Yore, Founder, Yore Children
