President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Boris Epshteyn was discussed inside the Justice Department as a presence in the effort by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani to get federal fraud charges dropped, according to seven people familiar with the matter and records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Justice Department moved to dismiss the case in May, an unusual step that came after Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm that also represents Trump, made presentations to senior DOJ officials.
The October 2024 indictment alleged that Adani, whose conglomerate spans ports to coal, and seven other executives schemed to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian state officials who stood in the way of payment on contracts to increase solar-power capacity in the country. Prosecutors said Adani personally met with an Indian official on several occasions to advance the bribery scheme. The indictment, filed in federal court in Brooklyn, tied the scheme to the U.S. with allegations that Adani conspired to defraud bankers and U.S. investors by concealing the bribery scheme as Adani Green Energy raised money in bond offerings and took out loans.
The Adani Group at the time called the allegations “baseless.”
Epshteyn’s ties to the Trump administration drew the Adani family’s interest, people familiar with the inquiries said. The family asked around about Epshteyn last year, wanting to know if he was truly an insider in the Trump administration. As of last summer, the family was telling people that Epshteyn was helping them, some of the people said.
Epshteyn didn’t attend meetings with prosecutors, nor did his name appear on legal papers. That work was handled by lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell, a white-shoe firm that also represents Trump and was hired by Adani last summer. But Epshteyn’s presence was discussed inside the Justice Department and among others familiar with the case, people with knowledge of the matter said.
After two meetings with Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers, senior Justice Department officials took the unusual step of asking a judge to dismiss the charges against Adani and other defendants. The May 18 motion, which is waiting for the judge’s approval, bore none of the signatures of the line prosecutors who brought the case — an unusual omission signaling their disagreement with the outcome, said people familiar with their thinking.
Although Epshteyn has no official government role, his access to the president positions him as somebody who could make or break a career, people familiar with the matter said. He helped several senior Justice Department officials get their jobs, including Trent McCotter, one of the agency’s most senior officials, according to some of the people familiar with the matter.
McCotter, the principal associate deputy attorney general, had final say over whether to drop the Adani charges and made the decision based on the merits, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman, who added that Epshteyn played no role in McCotter’s hiring. Department officials, including McCotter and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, had no discussions with Epshteyn about the matter and weren’t aware of any involvement by him, the spokeswoman said.
Blanche, while in private practice, served as Epshteyn’s criminal-defense lawyer. After Epshteyn put in a good word for him, Trump’s team brought Blanche on to fight multiple prosecutions during the interregnum. Soon after winning re-election, Trump tapped Blanche to be his deputy attorney general. He has been acting attorney general since April and is waiting for a Senate vote on his nomination for the top job. The same month he took over as acting head, Blanche announced McCotter as principal associate deputy attorney general. Epshteyn had pushed for McCotter to get a Justice Department posting, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department spokeswoman said that McCotter was at the Justice Department based solely on “experience and merit” and that he had served in the department “long before ever meeting Boris.”
Both Epshteyn and McCotter were closely involved in discussions that resulted in the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that could have provided payouts to people convicted for their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and others claiming political persecution, before the administration was pressured to pull it. MSI previously reported on the abandonment of that fund here.
Democratic lawmakers sent a letter Thursday asking Blanche for an explanation of the decision to abandon the case and highlighted Sullivan & Cromwell co-chairman Robert Giuffra’s client relationship with Trump, whom Giuffra and his partners represent in two New York appeals.
When contacted by the Journal, a spokesman for the Adani Group said it never hired Epshteyn. “We retained Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, one of the top U.S. law firms, to achieve merit-based resolutions,” the company said in a statement, noting that the New York firm “provided a 115-page white paper, four expert reports, more than one hundred slides, and multiple oral presentations” to federal prosecutors. “We have no relationship with Boris Epshteyn, have not retained him in any capacity, and have made no payments to him, directly or indirectly,” the statement continued.
Epshteyn, through a spokesman, said he was never hired by nor did he maintain any relationship with Adani or his company. His lawyer added that he wasn’t involved in Adani’s “arguments, advocacy or efforts” involving the administration or the Justice Department. “The claims in this personal attack are false, malicious, and defamatory,” Epshteyn said in a statement. “This falsehood-ridden article is based on intentionally misleading rumors and is completely lacking any support or evidence.” Epshteyn’s lawyer told the Journal that he has never engaged in unethical conduct.
A spokesman for Sullivan & Cromwell said that the firm “did not work with or retain Mr. Epshteyn in connection with the firm’s representation of Mr. Adani.”
The White House referred requests for comment to the Justice Department.
“This administration has made clear that it is not the world police, choosing to focus on harms to American businesses and citizens,” the Justice Department spokeswoman said, adding that there were no losses to U.S. investors or entities.
The Justice Department rarely abandons cases that have already been charged, said Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and former federal prosecutor. By that point, they have already determined they have evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he said.
Epshteyn has regularly appeared at the president’s private clubs, guests said, and visits the White House frequently. Last week, he was standing just behind the president in a box at a Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals game. He calls Trump so frequently that even the president jokes about it, administration officials said. “It’s Boris again,” Trump will say, holding up his phone.
Earlier this year, Epshteyn was among those pushing for the dismissal of then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, telling Trump that she wasn’t aggressive enough in going after Trump’s foes, the Journal previously reported. Bondi didn’t regularly interact with Epshteyn during her time as attorney general, people familiar with the matter said.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, Epshteyn has quarterbacked the president’s legal fights while operating as a connector for clients with business before the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter. He offered to help potential clients solve issues before the administration in exchange for a monthly fee of as much as six figures, the people said. Through his spokesman, Epshteyn denied engaging in such activities.
Epshteyn’s advisory firm draws a $50,000 monthly paycheck from a Trump leadership PAC called Never Surrender, earning him more than $600,000 last year for legal and communications consulting, according to federal records. The group has paid him $1.8 million since 2023.
The Adani family also explored making a donation to Trump’s White House ballroom or to his future presidential library, a person familiar with the discussions said. The Adanis agreed to pay $293 million in penalties to resolve a related lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a Treasury Department sanctions investigation.