THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
July 30, 2024 at 15:55 JST
Megumi Hirose, an Upper House member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, returns to her home in Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward on July 30. (Koichi Fujimaki)
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on July 30 searched the offices and home of Megumi Hirose, an Upper House member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, on suspicion of fraud.
Prosecutors suspect that Hirose defrauded the central government of the salary paid for an aide registered to her, who did no work.
Hirose, 58, returned to her home in Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward at around 11:30 a.m. and told reporters, “I will give a full explanation later.”
Reporters gathered in front of a building that houses Hirose’s local office in Morioka, the capital of Iwate Prefecture.
The entrance door was covered with cardboard boxes to prevent anyone from looking in.
A staff member of her office told reporters, “I can’t answer right now.”
Hirose, a lawyer, ran for the seat in the Iwate electoral district in 2022 as an LDP-backed candidate and won for the first time.
In late March this year, a weekly magazine reported that a person that Hirose registered as her aide was not actually working.
Hirose posted a statement on her website, denying the allegation.
According to the statement, from December 2022 to August 2023, Hirose also registered the wife of her aide as an aide.
The weekly magazine’s report pointed out that the wife did not actually work.
Hirose said in the statement that the wife “worked remotely in Tono city in Iwate Prefecture on weekdays, creating and updating lists of supporters, and on weekends she worked at the office in Morioka and drove (Hirose) to and from the station and other places.”
This is the second scandal involving Hirose in recent months. In early March, a weekly magazine reported on her alleged affair.
After the report, Hirose declined to resign from the Diet or leave the party over the scandal.
“I know it will be difficult to regain the trust of my supporters and voters, but I will do my best with sincerity,” she told reporters.
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