Lawmakers mentioned in the TM Report include those who were not named in the Liberal Democratic Party’s own investigation of its members’ ties to the Unification Church.

On September 8, 2022 — two months after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) released the results of its investigation into ties between its members and the Unification Church.

Nearly half of the lawmakers surveyed, 179 out of 379, acknowledged having ties to the Unification Church. However, the “investigation” was based solely on self-reported information from lawmakers, making it highly unlikely to have discovered the true extent of the relationship.

Only the names of 121 lawmakers deemed to have “significant involvement” with the church were made public. What’s more, the specifics of said involvement were not disclosed. Rather, they were classified solely based on categories such as “attended event held by church-affiliated organizations” and “church members volunteered support during an election.”

Even now, with a lower house election having been held in early 2026, the LDP continues to obscure its ties to the Unification Church.

However, the TM Report provides detailed accounts of the relationship between LDP lawmakers and the Unification Church. To help voters make informed decisions, Tansa decided to publish information on the LDP candidates in the recent lower house election whose ties to the church were concretely described in the TM Report.

Ichiro Aisawa: “I will do whatever I can to help!”

Ichiro Aisawa, who ran for office in Okayama District 1, has close ties with the Unification Church, as described by church President Eiji Tokuno in a TM Report date March 16, 2021.

There is a senior LDP member, a Diet member from Okayama Prefecture, with whom I have had a long-standing and close personal connection. His name is Ichiro Aisawa, a member of the lower house, and he gave me a phone call a few days ago.

 

Aisawa serves as chairman of a parliamentary friendship group between Myanmar and Japan. He called to tell me that he was interviewed on TV about the recent serious situation in Myanmar and requested that I be sure to watch the broadcast and let him know my thoughts on it.

 

A prominent member of the LDP, Ichiro Aisawa has served in the Diet for 30 years.

Tokuno also noted how Aisawa cooperated with the Unification Church in a TM Report dated January 28, 2021.

In order to fulfil your earnest wishes, we received clear instructions from Director GeneralYun to make concrete preparations so that we could come for Christmas. The morning after the conference — that is, yesterday, January 27 — we hurried to the Korean Embassy, and I asked Director Cho to handle communications with the World Headquarters and the Korean Embassy. Then, together with UPF Chairman Kajikuri, Continental President Hori, European Committee Chairman Otsuka, and other Japanese members, we boldly took on the challenge of securing visas to travel from Japan to South Korea during this time.

 

Ultimately, we found that, given the severity of Covid-19 and the current difficulties in Japan-South Korea relations, obtaining a visa is by no means an easy task.

 

Once it became clear that visas could in fact be issued, a process that typically takes about two weeks, I heard that it might be possible to shorten the time to two or three days with the help of politicians such as Diet members. So I immediately called Ichiro Aisawa, a lower house member representing Okayama with whom I have a close relationship, and asked for his assistance.

 

As a senior member of the LDP, Aisawa is a prominent and seasoned lawmaker who also serves as vice-chair of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians’ Union. He is a highly influential figure with extensive connections within the South Korean government and the South Korean Embassy. When I called him, Representative Aisawa promised his full cooperation, saying, “If Chairwoman Han Hak-ja invites you, you simply must go! I will do whatever I can to help!”

List of lawmakers up for re-election in early 2026 who were mentioned in TM Report

In addition to Aisawa, the TM Report also contained concrete descriptions of the church ties held by other candidates in the 2026 lower house election. They are listed below, with relevant excerpts.

The numbers next to the names indicate the following categories from the LDP’s own investigation. Legislators whose names were not published by the LDP are listed as “not reported.”

① Requested election support from the former Unification Church and affiliated organizations, as well as accepted organizational support, mobilization, etc.
② Volunteer support during elections
③ Among lawmakers who “received donations or party revenue from the former Unification Church and affiliated organizations,” those subject to disclosure requirements under the Political Funds Control Act
④ Among lawmakers who “paid membership fees, etc., to the former Unification Church and affiliated organizations,” those subject to disclosure requirements under the Political Funds Control Act
⑤ Attended meetings of organizations affiliated with the former Unification Church (where the lawmaker personally attended and gave a speech)
⑥ Attended meetings of organizations affiliated with the former Unification Church (where the lawmaker personally attended and delivered remarks)
⑦ Attended meetings hosted by the former Unification Church

 

 

The information in parentheses at the end of entries indicates the year and author of the report. The reporter authors were Unification Church President Eiji Tokuno, International Federation for Victory Over Communism President Masayoshi Kajikuri, and Japan District 4 head Kim Man-jin; all titles are as of the time the report was made. Entries are listed in Japanese alphabetical order. Photos are sourced from the websites of the respective lawmakers, the LDP, and the Prime Minister’s Office.

LDP did not respond to request for comment

On January 26, 2026, Tansa sent a request for comment, addressed to Party President Sanae Takaichi, to the LDP’s public relations headquarters. After outlining the contents of the TM Report, we posed the following three questions, with a deadline for comment of noon on January 28. However, as of February 3 (the date this article was originally published in Japanese), we have not received a response.

1. Are the details regarding the relationship between the Unification Church and the LDP and its members, as described in the TM Report, accurate? If there are any inaccuracies, please provide the correct information along with concrete evidence.

2. Will the LDP conduct an investigation into the relationship between the Unification Church and its affiliated organizations and the LDP and its members, as described in the TM Report? Please explain your answer.

3. If the TM Report contains false information, will you lodge a protest or take other action against the former Unification Church headquarters, which prepared the report, and the South Korean special prosecutor’s office and the courts that used the report as evidence? Please explain your answer.

(Korean–Japanese translation: Kang Min-ju)

Reporting on the “TM Report”

Regarding the TM Report, the Unification Church has refuted it, while the LDP has turned a blind eye.

On January 16, 2026, the Unification Church’s Public Relations Department of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification published “Our Organization’s View on the ‘TM Special Report’.”

Within their announcement, there is a report by a staff member who is said to have worked under Yun Young-ho, a former World Headquarters director who compiled the TM Report. It points out that the report is highly likely to contain deliberate omissions, alterations, and additions, concluding that it is “extremely lacking in credibility.” The report’s author remains anonymous, and no details regarding their position or role are disclosed.

It also states that, regarding the relationships with Japanese politicians described in the TM Report, “it cannot be ruled out that the expressions within the report go beyond the established facts, that the context has been embellished, or that the report includes content that cannot be verified as factual.”

From the Unification Church side, on January 8, 2026, former Chairman Eiji Tokuno also posted a statement on X. He acknowledged that “it is true that it includes a report I sent to the former World Headquarters Director to report to leader Han” while adding that “it also contains many personal opinions and wishful predictions.”

In September 2022, two months after the assassination of former LDP President Shinzo Abe, the LDP conducted an investigation into its ties with the Unification Church and concluded that “the party has no organisational relationship with the Church.” The investigation was severely inadequate, relying solely on self-reporting by lawmakers. Despite this, current party president Sanae Takaichi has shown absolutely no intention of evaluating the TM Report. On January 26, 2026, she appeared on TBS’s news23. When Akiko Oishi, co-chair of the Reiwa Shinsengumi, pointed out that Takaichi’s name appears in the TM Report, Takaichi called it a “document of unknown origin” and went so far as to say “that would amount to defamation”.

Tansa reviewed the entire 3,212-page Korean version of the TM Report.Making use of AI-based analysis, examining the document together with translators and our reporting partner, the Korean investigative journalism organization Newstapa.

Extensive research has been conducted on the Unification Church and a vast body of investigative findings has been accumulated by journalists and researchers, as well as by lawyers and religious scholars who have worked on victim support and countermeasures. Tansa respects the work of its predecessors and has utilised their findings to examine the TM Report.

As a result, we have determined that the TM Report is a crucial document in unraveling the longstanding codependency between the Unification Church and the LDP.

While continuing to report on the TM Report, we will pursue further investigation. If you have internal information regarding undisclosed ties between the Unification Church and the Liberal Democratic Party, we encourage you to contact Tansa. We will responsibly protect and keep confidential the identity of our sources.

For those wishing to provide information, please refer to the page. It contains details on contact methods, points to note, and key aspects of the Whistleblower Protection Act.

The Unification Church changed its name to the “Family Federation for World Peace and Unification” in 2015, and the media refers to it as the “Former Unification Church.” However, because there is continuity in the fundamental problems inherent to the Church, Tansa will refer to it as the “Unification Church.”

 

January 27, 2026

Tokyo Investigative Newsroom Tansa

 

(Originally published in Japanese on February 3, 2026. )

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