Previously in August 2017, one month prior to joining the Justice Department as Sessions' chief of staff, Whitaker wrote an opinion column for CNN titled "Mueller's investigation of Trump is going too far". He stated that Mueller's investigation is a "lynch mob", that it should be limited and should not probe into Trump's finances. Whitaker also argued in 2017 that the Trump Tower meeting was neither improper nor evidence of collusion. The New York Times reported that White House aides and other people close to Trump anticipated that Whitaker would "rein in" the investigation.
As Rosenstein later informed Congress, he elected to use a Special Counsel rather than have the FBI itself oversee the investigation because did not believe acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe was the right person to lead the investigation. Instead, he would appoint a Special Counsel, as had been done in the past. U.S. Attorneys serve as special counsel, but in May 2017 there were only three Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys serving at the time, the Senate having not yet confirmed the new president's nominees, and those three had remained as holdovers from the previous administration pending the arrival of the new attorneys. As a result, Rosenstein decided to select Robert Mueller, though he was retired, because of his reputation.
More InfoAt the start of February 2016, AQAP recaptured Azzan, an important commercial city in Shabwa province. A few weeks later, al-Qaeda fighters and Saudi-led coalition forces were seen fighting a common target; the Houthis.But the situation is different in Aden, the AQAP/ISIS and pro-Hadi that were fighting a common enemy in Taiz are enemies in Aden. On 29 February 2016, a suicide car killed 4 pro-Hadi troops in Shiek Othman district in Aden, the city that Hadi uses as a temporary capital.
More InfoThe special counsel also took over an FBI investigation on whether President Trump had committed obstruction of justice, which began within eight days after Trump's dismissal of FBI Director James Comey. CNN reported in December 2018 that then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe started the investigation based on Comey's firing—which had been recommended in writing by Rosenstein in what became known as the Comey memo—and also Comey's allegation that Trump had asked him to stop investigating Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In February 2019, McCabe, since fired from the FBI, confirmed he launched the obstruction of justice investigation for those reasons, and gave additional reasons such as Trump's multiple depictions of the investigation into Trump associates and Russia as a "witch hunt", as well as Trump allegedly telling Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to mention the Russia probe in Rosenstein's memo to recommend firing Comey, and Trump's comments to the Russian ambassador and NBC relating Comey's firing to the Russia probe.
More InfoIt includes events described in investigations into suspected inappropriate links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials until July 2016, with July 2016 through election day November 8, 2016, following. Events and investigations also occurred during the presidential transition from November 9, 2016, to January 20, 2017, and continued through the first and second halves of 2017; the first and second halves of 2018, 2019, and 2020, largely as parts of the Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation, the Special Counsel investigation, multiple ongoing criminal investigations by several State Attorneys General, and the investigation resulting in the Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ actions in the 2016 election.
More InfoHuman Rights Watch criticized the UN Security Council repeatedly for "remaining almost silent on coalition abuses". In January 2016 an unpublished United Nations panel investigating the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen uncovered "widespread and systematic" attacks on civilian targets in violation of international humanitarian law, calling UN Security Council up for an international commission of inquiry. Saudi Arabia had previously objected to an inquiry being set up, and had not been supported by Western governments.
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