The Washington Post is reporting Tuesday night that CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a top-secret trip to North Korea over Easter weekend to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Kim Jong Un and President Trump.
Breaking —> CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a top-secret trip to North Korea over Easter and met with Kim Jong Un. A Wash Post exclusive https://t.co/JqkjRnvz8E
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) April 17, 2018
— Drew McCoy (@_Drew_McCoy_) April 18, 2018
CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a top-secret visit to North Korea over Easter weekend as an envoy for President Trump to meet with that country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, according to two people with direct knowledge of the trip.
The extraordinary meeting between one of Trump’s most trusted emissaries and the authoritarian head of a rogue state was part of an effort to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Trump and Kim about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, according to the two people, who requested anonymity because of the highly classified nature of the talks.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump had said during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that his administration had had “direct talks at very high levels, extremely high levels with North Korea.”
BREAKING: White House: Trump has not spoken directly with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, but talks have been held at 'highest levels.'
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 17, 2018
Sam Vinograd is a national security analyst for CNN:
I'm actually reassured that Pompeo met w KJU. High level USG official laying the ground work/ doing the prep work for a meeting vs. scrambling to get a meeting together by May just to meet an arbitrary off the cuff deadline. Process catching up with the President. @shaneharris https://t.co/k5gqQAqik6
— Sam Vinograd (@sam_vinograd) April 18, 2018
Helpful intel gathering as well – we need to know how KJU interacts if there is any hope of (trying to) prep @realDonaldTrump
— Sam Vinograd (@sam_vinograd) April 18, 2018
Dilbert creator and Trump supporter Scott Adams had said this earlier in the day before news broke about the trip:
If North Korea denuclearizes during Trump’s first term . . . while the U.S. economy expands as quickly as ISIS shrinks . . . historians will see Trump as a top-five president. Even if you don’t like him. https://t.co/7P5s4p0V5e
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) April 17, 2018
Related:
Breaking: North Korea reportedly prepared to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula https://t.co/OXxO1MrB2e
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 8, 2018
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