. >> but al lewis, the argument, 50 million of the checks went out, certainly you will get dead people and convicts thrown in there. i'm thinking that is a sad commentary right there. >> it is a lot of large numbers. everything that the government does they do it on a big scale and screw it up. what is the big deal here. these guys are paying their debt to society. you know, they got to buy marlboros behind bars, it is expensive. and the checks are supposed to stimulate the economy. there were never any discussion about what parts of the economy couldn't be stimulated like the federal prison system. this is business as usual for our government. >> yes, this was a mistake. the reason why it happened is that these are people who were all eligible for the benefits at the time they were demmed to be given. just found themselves in prison three months later when the checks were cut. >> when the envelopes are going out and they say levinworth, attica, should they say wait a minute, where are the checks going. i understand it is a small percentage. i don't dismiss that. i heard from people th

al gore's current network. they received heartfelt thanks for the release. nbc news correspondent george lewis joins us now to tell us about that. what did they do? were they sent to hard labor? what did they do behind the scenes? >> reporter: actually i think it's more what their families did. they had a series of vigils throughout the country. they worked tirelessly behind the scenes with state department officials and others to negotiate with the north korean government and eventually after all of these negotiations bill clinton was sent off to north korea with a promise that if he arrived and had talks with kim jong-il, the leader of north korea a, the two women would be released in his custody, and indeed they were. but imagine their shock after being captured in march a, then put on trial as spies in june, sentenced to 12 years of hard labor thinking they were going to be sent off any moment to a north korea gulag, they walk into a room and there's bill clinton. they knew at this moment they were going to be freed as you saw in that sound bite. so a lot of intense behind the scenes negot

al gore is expected to be there as well, but we know for sure that george lewis is there.porter: we're at site hangar 25, xpevgting the plane with former president clinton with two freed journalists to come up here. the doors will open, the plane will pull in. they'll put a ramp up next to the plane and everybody will come off of it here in front of our camera shot here in a few minutes, as you've said. the plane now taxiing towards the hangar here. we don't know how long exactly that will take, but we expect that to unfold in the next few minutes. we're also being told the mason reunion with the journalists and their families will take place at home rather than here. that they're going to have a little bit of private time and maybe come out later and talk to the press. so we're expecting to hear from former president al gore. he is actually the employer of the two freed journalists. he formed a company called current tv, a channel they were working for and at the border of north korea doing a story on human trafficking when they got nabbed by the north korean forces back