National security adviser John Bolton said Sunday the United States reneged on an agreement to pay North Korea $2 million for medical fees at the time of Otto Warmbier’s release.
On “Fox News Sunday,” Bolton admitted State Department envoy Joseph Yun signed a document agreeing to pay North Korea $2 million for the comatose American student’s medical costs, confirming reports last week. When asked if that agreement was kept, Bolton said, “absolutely not.”
“I think that’s the key point,” Bolton said. “The president’s been very successful in getting 20-plus hostages released from imprisonment around the world and hasn’t paid anything for any of them.”
Warmbier, a 21-year-old college student at the University of Virginia, was detained by North Korean authorities in January 2016 after being accused of trying to pull down a propaganda sign from the hotel where he was staying in Pyongyang. He made a forced confession and was sentenced to 15 years in prison while in North Korean custody, he was tortured and suffered a traumatic brain injury. After the U.S. negotiated his return, Warambier was returned to the U.S. in June 2017 in a comatose state. He never regained consciousness and died at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center that month.
When reports surfaced that an agreement was signed to pay the hermit nation $2 million, President Trump took to Twitter to dispute that any money was ever paid to secure Warmbier’s release.
“No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else,” he said.
