President Donald Trump Friday morning insisted on Twitter that "no money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier," after news reports said North Korean officials presented the United States with a $2 million bill for the student's medical bills before they released him from custody in 2017.
"No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else," he tweeted. "This is not the Obama Administration that paid 1.8 Billion Dollars for four hostages, or gave five terrorist [cq] hostages plus, who soon went back to battle, for traitor Sgt. Bergdahl!"
In a follow-up tweet, Trump posted a quote from someone he identified only as "Chief [cq] Hostage Negotiator, USA", that "President Donald J. Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States. 20 hostages, many in impossible circumstances, have been released in the last two years. No money was paid.”
Both tweets came several hours after news broke Thursday afternoon that Trump had approved the payment of the $2 million bill for Warmbier, who was returned while in a coma to the United States and died shortly thereafter.
The student had been held in a North Korean prison for 17 months before his release. According to The Washington Post, the invoice was handed to State Department envoy Joseph Yun hours before Warmbier was flown out of Pyongyang on June 13, 2017. It is not known at this time whether the bill has been paid, but it remained unpaid through the Treasury Department through 2017.