One day after a bipartisan pair of U.S. Senators chastised the State Department for refusing to send any officials to a hearing on North Korea policy, one of President Trump's top envoys in long-stalled talks with Pyongyang opened up publicly on Wednesday about the status of U.S.-DPRK relations.

But in a move that frustrated lawmakers on Capitol Hill, instead of speaking to Congress, the official -- deputy special representative for North Korea Alex Wong -- chose to speak to "friends" at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in downtown Washington.