Warmbier’s home-state senator: ‘We can’t be naive about what they did to Otto’

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) on Thursday warned the Trump administration not to be naive about the “brutal nature” of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government after President Trump said he believes Kim didn’t know about the mistreatment of Ohio native Otto Warmbier.

“I want to make clear that we can never forget about Otto. His treatment at the hands of his captors was unforgiveable and it tells us a lot about the nature of the regime,” Portman said on the Senate floor.

{mosads}“We can’t be naive about what they did to Otto, about the brutal nature of the regime that would do this to an American citizen,” he said.

Warmbier was arrested in North Korea in January 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster and was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. He was released to the United States in June 2017 while in a vegetative state, which North Korean officials blamed on botulism, and died soon after.

Trump told reporters at a Thursday press conference that he doesn’t think Kim was responsible for Warmbier’s severe treatment, which resulted in extensive brain damage.

“I don’t believe he knew about it,” Trump said after meeting with Kim at a bilateral summit in Vietnam. “He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.”

Portman on Thursday warned that the nation must not forget about Warmbier or fail to hold North Korea accountable.

Portman later told The Hill that Kim’s officials are “human rights violators across the board.” 

“I can’t tell you specifically who was knowledgeable of it but I would assume it goes straight to the top,” he added.

Portman noted in his floor speech that North Korean officials failed to tell Warmbier’s family or American officials who were negotiating for his release that he had fallen into a coma. 

“Who did the North Korean government tell about the fact that he had this brain damage? No one. Unbelievably for the next 15 months of his life they kept this a secret,” he said. “They denied him access to the best medical care he deserved, which of course we would have provided.”

Portman, however, did not fault Trump for sitting down with Kim for a second time in Vietnam, which Democrats have criticized as providing important international recognition to the leader.

“I support engagement with North Korea. I’m not going to judge exactly when you should sit down but I think it’s good to engage with them,” he said.