Sam Brownback
Sam Brownback

Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback is calling on the Trump administration to intervene on behalf of Morse H. Tan, a former State Department colleague who has been barred from leaving South Korea for months amid a criminal defamation case.

Tan, who served as U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice during President Donald Trump's first term, has been under an exit ban since June. He is scheduled to face his first trial hearing in South Korea on Friday over allegations that he defamed South Korean President Lee Jae Myung during remarks made on American soil last year.

Brownback, who led the religious freedom post from 2018 to 2021 and previously served as governor of Kansas, told The Christian Post he was stunned when he learned of the case against Tan, a legal scholar and professor.

"I was shocked, I really was," Brownback said.

He argued that the treatment would be unsurprising from an authoritarian government but is jarring coming from South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally and democracy.

"Here's a former U.S. diplomat, a respected legal scholar and professor who's being arrested and persecuted in a democracy," Brownback said. "If he were traveling to North Korea or Russia, I wouldn't be surprised at all. But he's not. It's South Korea, and so I was really stunned when I first heard about it."

How the case began

Tan was swept into a reopened South Korean criminal investigation after traveling to the country in late May to observe local elections amid allegations of irregularities and Chinese interference. He was formally charged without detention in July over comments he made in June 2025 at a National Press Club event in Washington focused on Korean election integrity.

During that event, Tan referenced rumors and reports that Lee had been involved in a sexual assault and murder as a teenager, remarks that circulated widely online at the time. Tan has said he remains skeptical of South Korean court findings and fact-checks that have dismissed those allegations, and he has cast his exit ban as a broader violation of his rights as a U.S. citizen tied to what he describes as the erosion of civil liberties in South Korea.

In social media posts, Tan has said he has been hit with three successive travel bans, which he attributed to his opposition to what he calls a "counterrevolutionary movement against the communizing coup d'état and the subsequent purge" he says is underway in the country. Those bans have reportedly been extended until at least November.

Tan, a Christian, has also suggested he may be targeted in part because of his faith, and he has described South Korea's current government as "a rising dictatorship," alleging the country faces "massive infiltration" by Chinese Communist Party and North Korean operatives.

Wider concerns about religious freedom

Brownback pointed to South Korea's broader political climate as cause for alarm, noting that former President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year over his December 2024 declaration of martial law, an order Yoon said was necessary to counter pro-North Korean elements before he was impeached and removed from office in 2025.

Brownback also cited the detainment of religious figures, including Pastor Son Hyun-bo, who met with Trump at the White House last month after months in South Korean custody. Son leads the conservative Christian movement "Save Korea" and has organized rallies against Yoon's impeachment; he faced allegations of illegal electioneering tied to the country's presidential election.

"I'm really concerned about the trend right now, particularly toward religious leaders or religious-affiliated people," Brownback said. "They've arrested a number of religious leaders, tried them and are certainly trying to intimidate religious figures and leaders. And I think it's a horrible trend line for that democracy. I don't understand it."

Brownback warned the approach carries long-term risk, saying such tactics "will not play well for them long-term."

"It's against history. It's against what South Korea has historically done," he said. "And I understand maybe there's some near-term political benefits potentially, but this is not the way for a democracy to be trending, and particularly such a key ally of the United States in that region."

He further raised concerns about Chinese Communist Party influence reaching into South Korean institutions, describing it as part of a broader pattern.

"That's their playbook in democracies. They use our system against us. They use these open systems to infiltrate, to push us, to really try to ride the system," Brownback said, adding that he believes the same dynamic is unfolding "in South Korea, Japan and other relatively open societies in the world."

A delicate diplomatic balance

Brownback acknowledged the difficult position facing the Trump administration, which relies on South Korea as a strategic partner amid rising competition with China, but he urged officials to push back against Seoul's conduct.

"We're at a tough time, and you play one game at a time, as the football saying is. And right now, the game is China. We need South Korea. We need Japan. We need these allies," he said. "And so I'm sure there's some hesitancy about pushing back too aggressively. But this is just not the way democracy should operate."

He drew a comparison to India, which he said presents a similar challenge as a key ally accused of persecuting Christians and other religious minorities, and argued that religious liberty underpins other civil freedoms.

"Religious freedom is that human right that can really pull the other ones along, or it also can be used to stymie the other ones," Brownback said. "If you stymie religious freedom, it's going to hurt your freedom of speech, your freedom of assembly, your other basics. This is the human right that can be the engine for pulling the others, but if that engine is stalled, it's going to hurt the others, too."

Congressional and State Department response

Last month, a group of congressional Republicans sent a letter to South Korean Ambassador Kang Kyung-hwa condemning what they called Tan's "remarkably unfair treatment" over statements made in the United States.

The State Department has said it is aware of Tan's situation, telling The Christian Post that the administration "has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans" and "takes seriously any concerns that U.S. citizens are subject to exit bans without a fair and transparent process to resolve them." A department spokesperson added that, "due to privacy and other considerations, we have nothing further to share at this time."

Tan's trial hearing is scheduled for Friday in South Korea.