We are now learning that during the June 2017 release of Otto Warmbier, the North Koreans gave the Trump administration a $2 million dollar bill that they said amounted to Warmbier’s medical costs:
FOX NEWS – The U.S. received a $2 million hospital bill from the North Korean government for the care of American Otto Warmbier, who fell into a coma for unknown reasons while he was imprisoned in the country before he died in the U.S. in 2017, Fox News has confirmed.
Pyongyang authorities insisted the U.S. envoy sent to retrieve the University of Virginia student sign a pledge to pay the bill before allowing Warmbier’s comatose body to return to the United States, the Washington Post reported Thursday. Sources familiar with the matter confirmed the bill and the amount to Fox News.
Citing two people familiar with the situation, the Post reported the envoy signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions from President Trump. However, a source told Fox News the U.S. did not pay money to North Korea.
The White House declined to comment, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders saying in a statement: “We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration.”
News of his condition sparked an effort by Joseph Yun, the State Department’s point person on North Korea at the time, to get Warmbier home, the Post reported.
Yun and an emergency medicine doctor, Michael Flueckiger, traveled to the North Korean capital on a medical evacuation plane and were taken to the Friendship Hospital. There, they found Warmbier lying in a room marked “intensive care unit” and had a feeding tube in his nose.
The Post reported Yun was asked to sign the pledge for payment when he went to retrieve Warmbier. He reportedly called then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who called the president.
Both Tillerson and Trump instructed Yin to sign the pledge, sources told the Post.
Warmbeir had been in a coma for a year, a fact that the North Koreans couldn’t be bothered to tell the Trump administration when giving the “bill”.
Otto Warmbier’s father suggests that what the Kim regime was really after was a ransom payment.
I’m just glad to know that Trump didn’t pay it, although I’m sure the regime got more than they ever wanted with their international dance with Trump.