The Trump administration fired a federal prosecutor connected to its controversial decision to drop a criminal case against an Indian billionaire with political connections.
The prosecutor worked in the Justice Department’s fraud section and had been assigned to the case against Gautam Adani, NBC News reported Wednesday.
The unnamed prosecutor was one of two who asked to withdraw from the case just two days after senior Justice Department official Trent McCotter moved to dismiss it in May.
A federal judge eventually agreed to drop the charges against Adani, but still criticized the Trump administration’s handling of it as “highly unusual.”
“The prosecutor’s firing came a month later,” two people familiar with the decision told NBC News.
Adani was charged in 2024 over an alleged scheme to deceive American investors and bribe Indian officials to secure a deal for a massive solar power project. He denied the accusations, but that didn’t stop questions from persisting.
“Adani pledged to invest billions of dollars in the U.S. and Democratic lawmakers raised questions of a quid pro quo with the Trump administration to avoid prosecution,” according to NBC News.
Adani and the Justice Department denied making any such deal, the outlet added, although it also noted a May email from U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella “referenced a slide deck presentation from Adani’s defense team that included a proposal to invest $10 billion in the United States, and Nocella wrote that the proposal was ‘categorically rejected’ by the office.”
The Justice Department maintains that the case was “indefensible” and says the investment proposal played no role in its decision.