When the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) civil suit related to 1MDB was announced in July, the questions on people's minds were: How would this affect Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak? And what would happen to Malaysia-US ties?

On the first matter, outgoing US ambassador to Malaysia Joseph Y Yun, in an interview with Malaysiakini at his office in Kuala Lumpur, was initially reluctant to share his views.