Gautam Adani moved to quash suspicions that his billions-dollar investment commitment to the U.S. helped trigger the Justice Department's abrupt decision to drop criminal charges against him, filing a sworn statement this week that flatly denied any quid pro quo arrangement with federal prosecutors.
The Indian billionaire's declaration came after a federal judge demanded clarity on whether any backroom deal had been struck. "To my knowledge, the Adani Group's interest in investing in the United States had no role in the DOJ's decision to seek the dismissal of the indictment," Adani stated in the court filing.
The statement amounts to a direct rebuttal to lingering questions about the government's reversal. In May, the Justice Department moved to abandon its case against Adani, citing a lack of desire to commit further resources. That about-face stood in sharp contrast to prosecutors' 2024 indictment, which alleged Adani orchestrated a sprawling fraud and bribery scheme targeting U.S. investors while corrupting Indian officials to secure rights to the country's largest solar plant project, potentially worth $2 billion in profits over two decades.
Adani has consistently rejected the accusations as baseless. He was never arrested or extradited to face trial.
His attorney, Robert J. Giuffra Jr., added his own declaration Wednesday, providing a window into months of back-and-forth between the defense and prosecutors. During two conversations with government officials, Giuffra wrote, he mentioned that Adani Group would be willing to follow through on a public pledge to invest $10 billion in the United States as part of any settlement aimed at resolving the case on its merits.
The Justice Department, however, rejected that overture. In a statement Giuffra cited, prosecutors declined to factor the investment commitment into any negotiated resolution.
The scrutiny intensified because the dismissal paperwork lacked signatures from the line prosecutors who handled the case. The filing instead carried signatures from Trent McCotter, principal associate attorney general, and Joseph Nocella, U.S. attorney for Brooklyn, a deviation from standard practice.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, tasked with deciding whether to rubber-stamp the dismissal, demanded the sworn statements. His skepticism reflected broader alarm in Congress. Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut wrote to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche requesting details about the decision's "reportedly transactional nature."
McCotter later furnished his own filing in early July, insisting the case warranted dismissal on legal and factual grounds alone. "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, labeling the case "indefensible."
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The theater of sworn denials and lawyerly declarations can obscure a simple reality: when a billionaire pledges billions to a country right as prosecutors drop his case, skepticism is warranted, regardless of what any filing claims."
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