Presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung's phone recordings, laced with expletives and admissions of lying and corruption for over 160 minutes, were released to the media this week by a lawyer who recently published a book detailing Lee's attempt to fraudulently lock up his own older brother in a psychiatric hospital.

The recordings show an unhinged man using his family members, including his older brother, his sister-in-law and his nephew as punching bags for verbal abuse and threats of violence. Though previously blocked by courts, lawyer Jang Young-ha went ahead with releasing all the mp3 files at a press conference and email blast after the Democratic Party released secret voice recordings of the wife of conservative presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol.

Of particular note is an admission that Lee Jae-myung is well acquainted with a key figure in the Daejang-dong land corruption scandal from his time as mayor of Seongnam City. He had previously denied knowing the bureaucrat who has been in jail since October 2021 on bribery charges. Will this prompt the investigation many in the nation have long awaited? If anything, it gives a more accurate character assessment of a man whose own brother thought was a fake.