DOJ defends decision to drop criminal charges against billionaire Indian businessman

The Justice Department defended its decision to drop its criminal case against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, saying the businessman’s reported pledge to invest billions of dollars in the United States did not influence the move. In a letter, Trent McCotter, principal associate attorney general, said the government decided to forgo the charges before the offer was ever raised, arguing that the case was “so indefensible.” “I would have sought dismissal of the securities charges regardless of any mentions of investments, regardless of whether the civil case (or any other matter) was settled or otherwise resolved,” he wrote. Adani and others were indicted in 2024 by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and acussed in a massive fraud and bribery scheme. Prosecutors said Adani paid Indian government officials $250 million to win a bid to develop the country’s largest solar power plant. The contracts were projected to generate $2 billion in profits over 20 years. Prosecutors said that Adani also misled U.S. investors by concealing the alleged payments to Indian officials. Adani, who has close ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was never arrested in connection with the charges or brought to the U.S. to face trial. His lawyer, Robert J. Giuffra, Jr., declined to comment Monday. Giuffra previously said the government’s decision to drop the case came after months of “detailed and extensive communications and meetings” with the Justice Department, which included written submissions, expert testimony and presentations, according to a filing. In his letter to U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, McCotter argued that the case is a foreign matter and the alleged misconduct centers on Indians trying to bribe other Indians. The word “India” comes up in the filing well over 200 times, he said. “The United States pretending to be the world police can cause diplomatic strife and also wastes resources better spent on domestic concerns,” McCotter wrote. “India can better manage its internal systems than can prosecutors in Brooklyn and Washington.” He said U.S. investors didn’t lose a “single penny” on the transactions that prosecutors relied on to bring the charges. In May, the government asked for the indictment to be permanently thrown out, saying it had “reviewed this case and has decided, in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants.” The request was signed by McCotter, as well as Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella. It did not include signatures from line prosecutors assigned to the case. A month later, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, penned a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, inquiring about the “reportedly ‘transactional nature’” of the decision to drop the case. Reports of an investment pledge raised “serious questions about corruption under President Trump and about the role that Mr. Adani’s politically salient offer played in the DOJ’s decision,” the senators said in their letter. Garaufis hasn’t yet signed off on the Department of Justice’s request.