Politics

White House releases photos of Mike Pompeo meeting with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un

Key Points
  • White House releases photos of meeting between Mike Pompeo and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
  • Pompeo secretly met with the leader from the North over Easter weekend.
  • The photo release came hours after the Senate confirmed Pompeo as the next secretary of State.
A U.S. government handout photo released by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders shows U.S. Central Intelligence (CIA) Director Mike Pompeo meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, North Korea in a photo that Sanders said was taken over Easter weekend 2018.
U.S. Government | Reuters

President Donald Trump said Thursday that it would be a good idea to release the photographs of the meeting between then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders did just that on Thursday afternoon.

She released the photos over Twitter, saying that Pompeo "will do an excellent job helping @POTUS lead our efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula."

TWEET

The photo release came hours after the Senate confirmed Pompeo as the next secretary of State.

Over Easter weekend, Pompeo carried out a secret diplomatic meeting in North Korea to help prepare for Trump's summit with Kim.

Trump said that Pompeo was not slated to meet with the leader of North but an opportunity was later arranged during the trip.

"Mike Pompeo did go there, he wasn't supposed to meet with Kim Jong Un, but he did," Trump told "Fox and Friends." "You know they arranged actually while he was there to say hello."

Trump added that the two spoke for more than an hour and that there were "incredible pictures of the two talking and meeting."

Trump's comments came just hours before Kim was to cross the 38th parallel to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in for the first time since 2007.

Meanwhile, the logistics for the unprecedented summit between Trump and Kim are still in the works. Trump said he is considering four dates and five potential locations for the meeting.