Akie Abe (Mainichi)

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on March 24 released the contents of emails exchanged between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife Akie and the wife of Yasunori Kagoike, the head of scandal-hit nationalist school operator Moritomo Gakuen.

On the morning of March 24, the LDP distributed the emails to reporters because Kagoike did not object during his sworn testimony to the budget committees in both houses of the Diet on March 23, and the prime minister also gave the go-ahead. At first, the LDP was trying to have the emails released to the House of Councillors Budget Committee, but opposition parties objected.

The release covers 83 emails exchanged by the two women between June last year and March 16 this year. One email sent on Feb. 28 this year is about an alleged 100,000 yen speaking fee paid to Akie in 2015, in which Akie wrote, "I don't remember receiving a payment for the speech, so if I did, could you tell me?" No clear answer was sent back by Kagoike's wife, who responded, "It's awful. Who is that information from? We are receiving many emails of support from people around the nation, and it gives us heart. There's something very off about this."

During his testimony, Kagoike said, "We received an email from Ms. Akie that could be interpreted as trying to keep us quiet." Around the time of this email, on Feb. 25 Kagoike's wife sent an email saying that she had been asked by an LDP member "to remove a picture of Ms. Akie" at Moritomo Gakuen.

Akie responded, "I don't know much about it either, but there are a lot of things we need to be careful about. It probably was intended to mean we must be careful so that people don't suspect that because I was associated with you, there were secret dealings."

On March 2, Akie sent an email reading, "Let's do our best!" Kagoike's wife responded, "On what? I don't believe anyone anymore."

The last email was on March 16, from Akie, reading, "I have no memory of the 1 million yen," referring to a donation Kagoike claims he received from Prime Minister Abe via Akie. The released emails end there.