‘Transactional nature’: US senators question justice department’s request to drop case against Adani

Two Democratic senators in the United States have alleged that a reported proposal by Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani to invest $10 billion in the US economy if fraud charges against him are dropped appeared to be an “egregious quid pro quo offer”.

In a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal questioned the “transactional nature” of the US Department of Justice’s actions, referring to its request to a court to drop the criminal charges against Adani.

The department of justice on May 18 told a New York judge that it had decided, “in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges”. The judge has not yet approved the request.

Four days earlier, The New York Times reported that the department of justice was planning to drop the charges against Gautam Adani after he hired a legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers.

Warren and Blumenthal, in the letter to the acting attorney general on June 11, said that the department of justice’s decision gave the appearance “that Mr. Adani – with the help of one of the President’s personal lawyers – bought his way to criminal immunity, trading the promise of an investment in the United States for...

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