Doubts Over Kristi Noem’s Alleged Meeting With Kim Jong Un: Report

Congressional staffers and North Korea experts are calling into question claims by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem in her forthcoming memoir that she met North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un sometime between 2013 and 2015 during her time on the House Armed Services Committee. “I don’t see any conceivable way that a single junior member of Congress without explicit escort from the U.S. State Department and military would be meeting with a leader from North Korea,” George Lopez, University of Notre Dame professor and expert on the rogue nation, told The Dakota Scout Thursday. The outlet was unable to verify Noem’s account using congressional travel documents or outside sources, it claimed, while adding that one unidentified Capitol Hill staffer described her story as “bullshit.” Another professor and North Korea expert, Benjamin Young of Virginia Commonwealth University, called it “dubious.” He added: “What would have been so critical in his bag of tricks that he would have met with an American lawmaker, this one distinctively? There’s no way.” Additionally, Noem claimed in her book that last year she was “slated to meet with” the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. But Macron’s office told The Dakota Scout that she was never sent a “direct invitation.” Noem’s office, in a statement of The Dakota Scout, said it declined to discuss meetings with foreign leaders.