Scandal of a Staff in Prime Minister’s Office

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is surrounded by multiple scandals. In addition to defamation of contenders in presidential election of the Liberal Democratic Party last October, a secretary of Chief Cabinet Secretary (CCS) reportedly spent accommodation fee of his business trip for his extramarital affairs. Takaichi has not been successful in explaining about those scandals, causing decline of approval rate for her cabinet. 

Monthly Bungei Shunju magazine reported that a secretary of CCS had extramarital sexual affairs with a woman living in Osaka region, taking opportunities of business trip from Tokyo to Osaka for multiple times. He used his hotel room for his business trip to meet the woman without paying accommodation fee for two people. The report found at least five meetings of them between May and September 2025. The fee for their stay was paid as the cost of his business trip.

 

Moreover, the secretary is suspected to have leaked sensitive information of the government. The Bungei Shunju revealed that he told her about conversations with Crown Princess Kiko of Akishino when he hosted her in Osaka Kansai Expo 2025, or his procurement of gift to the U.S. President Donald Trump, presented by Japan’s representative in negotiation over additional tariffs on Japanese products.

 

The secretary for CCS once served as the secretary of Takaichi when she was State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. Takaichi held fundamental confidence to the secretary to the extent he could frequently visit Takaichi’s office. When she took seat of the prime minister, Takaichi hoped to assign him for her secretary, but the post of prime minister’s secretary was occupied by highly ranked bureaucrats in ministries. Takaichi thus picked him for CCS secretary to let him stay close to her.

 

Chief Cabinet Secretary, Minoru Kihara, explained in the Committee on Cabinet of the Lower House that his secretary, Tadashi Mogi, had stayed with a woman in a hotel room for five times between May and September 2025, when Mogi was working for Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). They made overnight stay for two times out of those five meetings. Mogi was in charge of Osaka Kansai Expo 2025.

 

Mogi has been one of a few allies of Takaichi, to whom she can talk frankly. It was reported that Mogi was one of the regular members of Takaichi’s consulting conference in the prime minister’s official residence. For Takaichi who is known as making decisions solely by herself or with consultation to a very few staffs, the scandal of CCS secretary can be a major damage on her.

 

Approval rate of Takaichi Cabinet has recently been declining with a few points. A poll of TV station showed a decline by 2.7 percentage points in mid-June. It indicated that over a half of respondents were frustrated with Takaichi’s explanation on defamation through social networking services in LDP presidential election last year. In appropriate campaign strategy and her staff’s false relationship with woman can erode Takaichi’s image of extremely popular prime minister.

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