Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn's role in DOJ's decision to drop Adani fraud case

The Adani Fraud Case Collapse and Boris Epshteyn's Shadow Role

In October 2024, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn unsealed a sweeping indictment against Gautam Adani, the Indian billionaire whose conglomerate spans ports, coal mines, airports, and renewable energy. The charges alleged that Adani and seven other executives conspired to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian state officials who controlled lucrative solar-power contracts, then disguised the scheme while raising money from U.S. investors and banks through Adani Green Energy bond offerings and loans. The Justice Department had concluded it had evidence sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — the high bar that typically must be cleared before charges are filed at all. Senior DOJ officials in Washington had, as recently as spring 2025, given prosecutors the green light to proceed.

By May 18, 2026, those same senior officials had reversed course entirely, asking a federal judge to dismiss all charges. The motion contained a striking anomaly: not a single signature from the line prosecutors who had built and brought the case — a deliberate absence that legal observers interpreted as a public signal of those prosecutors' disagreement with the outcome. Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler noted that the Justice Department almost never abandons fully charged cases, since by that point the evidentiary threshold has already been met.

What changed in the intervening months is now the subject of intense scrutiny.

Epshteyn's Alleged Involvement and the Sullivan & Cromwell Connection

At the center of the reversal is Boris Epshteyn, who serves simultaneously as Trump's personal attorney, legal coordinator, and close informal adviser. Seven people familiar with the matter, along with documents reviewed by journalists, indicate that Epshteyn was understood within Justice Department circles to be involved in Adani's Washington campaign to kill the case. The Adani family had reportedly asked around about Epshteyn as early as last year, vetting whether he was genuinely plugged into the Trump administration. By last summer, the family was telling associates that Epshteyn was helping them.

Epshteyn did not attend meetings with prosecutors or sign any legal papers — that visible work fell to Sullivan & Cromwell, the elite New York firm that the Adani Group retained last July after earlier teams from Wachtell Lipton, Quinn Emanuel, and Kirkland & Ellis had failed to move senior DOJ officials. Sullivan & Cromwell's co-chairman, Robert Giuffra, is simultaneously representing Trump in two high-stakes New York appeals — the criminal hush-money conviction and a civil fraud judgment — and Epshteyn, who manages Trump's legal affairs, had personally backed hiring the firm for that work and is in regular contact with Giuffra.

Sullivan & Cromwell presented DOJ officials with a 115-page white paper, four expert reports, more than one hundred slides, and multiple oral presentations in February and April 2026. The presentations argued that the alleged bribery fell outside the reach of U.S. law, challenged evidence that Adani personally participated in the scheme, and contended the prosecution endangered Adani's pledged $10 billion U.S. investment and 15,000 jobs — a pledge Adani himself had made in an X post the day before his indictment was unsealed, congratulating Trump on his election victory.

Trent McCotter, the principal associate deputy attorney general whom Epshteyn had pushed to place in a DOJ posting, attended both Sullivan & Cromwell presentations and made the final call to drop the charges. The Justice Department says McCotter's decision was purely merit-based and that Epshteyn played no role in his hiring — a characterization disputed by multiple people familiar with internal dynamics. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who represented Epshteyn in criminal defense before joining the administration after Epshteyn recommended him to Trump, also denies any contact with Epshteyn about the Adani matter.

Money, Access, and the Architecture of Informal Power

The Adani dismissal sits within a broader pattern of how Epshteyn operates in Trump's Washington. With no formal government title, he nonetheless functions as what multiple insiders describe as a career-maker and career-breaker inside the administration. His advisory firm collects $50,000 per month from the Never Surrender leadership PAC, netting him over $600,000 last year in legal and communications consulting fees. He also reportedly offered private clients help resolving issues before the administration in exchange for monthly retainers reaching into six figures — an arrangement he flatly denies.

Epshteyn's access is structural, not merely social. He helped place Blanche in Trump's orbit during the president's legal battles and pushed for McCotter's DOJ appointment. He was among those lobbying Trump to oust then-Attorney General Pam Bondi for insufficient aggressiveness against Trump's political enemies. He and McCotter were both involved in crafting a nearly $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund that would have paid out to January 6 defendants and others claiming political persecution, before administration pressure caused the plan to be shelved. He appeared just behind Trump at last week's NBA Finals.

Meanwhile, the Adani Group's settlement scorecard illustrates the complexity of the resolution. Adani and his nephew agreed to pay $18 million combined to settle an SEC civil lawsuit without admitting wrongdoing. The conglomerate's flagship, Adani Enterprises, agreed to pay $275 million to the Treasury Department to settle sanctions violations related to purchases of Iranian liquefied petroleum gas, acknowledging the seriousness of those violations. The criminal fraud charges — the most consequential exposure — were the ones dropped entirely.

The Adani family had also explored making a donation to Trump's White House ballroom renovation or his future presidential library, according to one person familiar with the discussions. Democratic lawmakers have now demanded that Blanche explain the decision to abandon the criminal case, spotlighting Giuffra's dual role representing both Adani and the president. Both Epshteyn and Adani Group deny any relationship existed between them. The judge has yet to formally approve the government's dismissal motion.