DOJ Reportedly Preparing to Drop Charges Against Gautam Adani – NYT
In the final weeks of the Biden administration, the Justice Department indicted India’s richest man, Gautam Adani, accusing him of running an “elaborate” bribery scheme involving “corruption and fraud at the expense of U.S. investors.”
Now, several people familiar with the case tell The New York Times that the Justice Department plans to drop the charges.
The shift came after Adani hired a new legal team led by Robert J. Giuffra Jr., one of President Trump’s personal lawyers and co-chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell.
At a previously unreported meeting last month at Justice Department headquarters in Washington, Giuffra presented roughly 100 slides arguing prosecutors lacked both key evidence and jurisdiction to bring the case, one person familiar with the meeting said.
Another slide offered that, if the charges were dropped, Adani would invest $10 billion in the U.S. economy and create 15,000 jobs, echoing a pledge he made after Trump’s election.
During the same meeting, Giuffra also sought to resolve a parallel SEC civil case and a separate Treasury Department investigation. Both agencies are now preparing settlements with Adani that would include financial penalties, according to people familiar with the deals.
