Will North Korea Release 3 American Detainees Soon?; Confusion Over Status Of 3 American Detainees In North Korea
COOPER: The fate of the three Americans detained in North Korea remains a mystery tonight, that's despite Rudy Giuliani now President Trump's personal attorney trumpeting the news in "Fox & Friends" this morning that freedom was close at hand. Today in fact he said.</s>GIULIANI: And we got Kim Jong-un impressed enough to release three prisoners today.</s>COOPER: Well, a couple things about that. First, when Sarah Sanders was asked about it at the press briefing about the remark, she said, they can't confirm, "the validity of their reports". Second, Rudy Giuliani as I mentioned as the President's personal attorney, not a secretary of state, not his deputy secretary of state. So, he doesn't have a White House job or as far as anyone knows a security clearance to be how and why Mr. Giuliani was talking about North Korea at all came up in today's press briefing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Watching us talking with Giuliani about the North Korean prisoners, given that he doesn't have a high level clearance?</s>SARAH SANDERS, PRESS SECRETARY, WHITE HOUSE: I'm not aware that they spoke about that. So, I don't know.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was he aware that Giuliani was going to be talking about it on TV during the</s>SANDERS: Again, I'm not aware of that they spoke about it, so I can't answer that.</s>COOPER: So there's that, which brings us to the third and perosomus (ph) curious part of all this, and that's what the President himself tweeted last night about three Americans. "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". Well, it sounds good, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. That's because two of three hostages in question were actually taken hostage during this President's administration. Jonathan Karl asked Sarah Sanders about the disconnect.</s>JONATHAN KARL, POLITICAL JOURNALIST: We talked about the prisoners in North Korea, you said the previous administration had been, you know, failed to get them out. This two of them were taken prisoner while Donald Trump was President.</s>SANDERS: When it comes to North Korea there -- I think could you also look at Otto Warmbier who was detained during a previous administration, as was one of the current detainees. And so that would reflect the President's comments that he made.</s>COOPER: Well, Otto Warmbier, who returned to the U.S. in a vegetative state and died less than a week later. That does question aside just where does that leave things with the current American prisoners. That is the most important thing after all. So for that I'm joined now by CNN's Paula Hancocks, who's in Seoul, South Korea. Paula, do we know actually anything concrete about the current status of the three Americans in North Korea?</s>PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Anderson, what we know is from officials who is actually dealing with this ongoing negotiation, and they say that the release of the three detainees is imminent. Now, they don't give any more specific timing than that. The word they use is imminent. And they also say that this has been months in the making. The North Korean Foreign Minister Ri who went to Sweden back in march. Sweden handles all the diplomatic issues for the U.S. with North Korea. And that he proposed that they release these three detainees. Now, at that point U.S. officials said they didn't want to linked to denuclearization. They didn't want to lessen the impact as well of denuclearization. But beyond that, the official says that they can't confirm these reports that potentially these three have actually been moved from labor correctional facilities, closer to the capitol, ready for release, so it's very difficult to get any kind of clarification on that.</s>COOPER: Do we know, have their families been notified of anything happening?</s>HANCOCKS: The families know nothing at this point. So we've been in touch with them, and they have said that they've heard nothing new. Now, in recent days and weeks they have been quite hopeful thinking that if this summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is going to go ahead, then potentially there is a very good chance that these three detainees could be released as what the White House and the State Department of course, a potential good will gesture. So certain they're hopeful, but they have heard nothing today. They heard nothing specific about timing. And clearly this would be very difficult for them.</s>COOPER: Has there been any more clarification of where Rudy Giuliani got the information that Kim Jong-un was "releasing three prisoners today".</s>HANCOCKS: There's no clarification from the Korean peninsula. This information as far as we can tell did not come from here, but the fact is, even the White House and the State Department say that they couldn't clarify or confirm that statement as well. So there are some heads being scratched at the moment, trying to figure out what exactly that kind of timing that was usually in this situation, you would get more of an indication and more of a word of mouth that something was about to happen, which we simply haven't had today.</s>COOPER: And has there been any reaction from the North Korean regime, publicly?</s>HANCOCKS: There's been no reaction whatsoever. We did hear from Kim Jong-un on Thursday. He met with the Chinese foreign minister and was talking about his firm position is denuclearization. This was all through the foreign ministry in China. But he didn't mention detainees at all. So, we've heard nothing from the North Korean side. And it's unknown how they would take this kind of speculation as well.</s>COOPER: All right, Paula Hancocks, thanks very much. Back in Washington, an update to a story we brought you last week. The House chaplain is getting to keep his job after all. Father Pat Conroy was -- has rescinded his resignation, is not something you hear everyday. And House Speaker Paul Ryan says he can stay. Ryan asked him to step down last month for reasons that are still a mystery aside some type of feedback about pastoral care. Lawmakers from both parties questioned the request for him to step down. In a letter to Ryan today, Conroy said that Ryan sent his chief of staff to ask for his resignation. And the chief of staff said something dismissive like maybe its time we have a chaplain that wasn't a catholic. The chief of staff says he disagrees with Conroy's recollection of the conversation. In a statement, Ryan says, he'll sit down with Conroy earlier this week, so the quote, we can move forward for the good of the whole house. Up next, Giuliani throws the rest of President Trump's legal team into some disarray. More on the impact of these comments, about the hush money reimbursement from Michael Cohen when we continue.