Trump hints 3 Americans detained in N. Korea will soon be free

Will three U.S. citizens detained by North Korea finally be allowed to leave the country? President Donald Trump seems to think so. On Wednesday night, he tweeted out a message that suggested the Americans could soon go free.

Mr. Trump tweeted “As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail. Stay tuned!”

(Two of the three prisoners were in fact detained by North Korea after Mr. Trump’s inauguration — meaning the Obama administration would not have sought their release.)

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team, also indicated the possibility of release on Thursday in an interview with Fox News. “We got Kim Jong Un impressed enough to be releasing three prisoners today,” he said.

Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Giuliani offered any details as to why they believe a release may be imminent. South Korean media outlets have recently reported a claim by an activist that the Americans were moved from a labor camp, according to NBC News, but the State Department has said it “cannot confirm the validity of these reports.”

And Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, suggested on Thursday afternoon that Mr. Trump was including Otto Warmbier among the three hostages the president had referred to in his Twitter post.

Mr. Warmbier, an American college student, was detained in North Korea in January 2016. He was flown back to the United States last June in a vegetative state and died at a hospital in Ohio shortly after.

And referring to Mr. Giuliani’s Thursday morning interview, Ms. Sanders said she “couldn’t confirm the validity” of reports about the hostages’ release.