PM Takaichi Explains Aide’s Account on Defamatory Video Scandal

Tokyo, July 6 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Monday that her plan to submit a document summarizing an aide’s explanations over a campaign video scandal was not an attempt to avoid answering questions about it in the Diet, the country’s parliament. Submitting the document “would help both questioners and the public better understand the full picture,” Takaichi said at a meeting of the Audit Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper Diet chamber. She made the comments when pressed to fulfill her responsibility to explain the allegations that her aide posted videos defaming her rivals on social media during recent elections. “I think that I have answered questions in good faith,” she added. Asked about a bill to revise the Imperial House Law to secure an adequate number of Imperial Family members, Takaichi said that it would not restrict future Diet discussions about the matter. The prime minister made the remarks when an opposition lawmaker criticized the bill for allowing sons of male-line descendants of former Imperial Family branches who are adopted into the family to be eligible to succeed the throne. The opposition lawmaker said that the ruling and opposition parties had not agreed the matter and urged the government to redo legislative work on the bill. Takaichi said the bill “never intends to get ahead of or tie down the Diet’s future consideration.” She also said that the bill’s content was in line with the “legislative consensus” compiled by the leaders of both chambers of the Diet. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]