Prosecutor in dismissed Adani bribery case is fired

A federal prosecutor who withdrew from the criminal case against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani after Justice Department leaders moved to dismiss the charges has been fired, people familiar with the matter told CBS News and NBC News.

CBS News identified the prosecutor as Andrew Tyler, an acting assistant chief in the fraud section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. He was removed Tuesday over allegations of ethical violations, two people familiar with the matter told CBS News, though they did not provide further details. NBC News first reported the firing.

Tyler could not immediately be reached for comment. NBC News reported that a spokesperson for the Eastern District of New York declined to comment. A person who previously worked with Tyler described him to CBS News as a dedicated employee who had spent most of his career at the Justice Department.

Adani and other executives at his renewable energy company were indicted in November 2024, near the end of the Biden administration, in a case alleging foreign bribery, securities fraud and a scheme to defraud U.S. investors. Prosecutors alleged they paid Indian government officials to win solar energy supply contracts, including a bid to develop what NBC News described as India’s largest solar power plant. Adani has called the accusations baseless.

In May, Trent McCotter, now the acting deputy attorney general, moved to dismiss the case against Adani. The move followed meetings between Justice Department officials and Adani’s attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell, including Bob Giuffra.

At one meeting, Giuffra presented slides disputing evidence of the alleged bribery scheme, according to people familiar with the matter and records reviewed by CBS News. One slide said one of Adani’s companies is “powering India’s progress,” and another said the Trump administration “would not have brought the case.” Giuffra also said that if prosecutors dropped the charges, Adani would be willing to invest $10 billion in the American economy, CBS News reported.

NBC News reported that a May email from U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella referenced a slide deck from Adani’s defense team that included a proposal to invest $10 billion in the United States. Nocella wrote that the proposal was “categorically rejected” by his office.

The Justice Department has denied any quid pro quo. McCotter has defended the decision to abandon the case, saying it was “indefensible” and that he “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.”

Adani said in a sworn statement filed in July that he was “not aware of any agreement involving any person or entity exchanging anything for the dismissal of the indictment.”

The motion to dismiss the case was signed only by politically appointed Justice Department officials, not by the career prosecutors assigned to it, CBS News reported. Shortly afterward, Tyler and co-counsel Shy Jackson filed motions to withdraw from the case, a step CBS News said was widely viewed as a quiet protest.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the Eastern District of New York initially refused to drop the charges, saying the Justice Department had not provided an adequate factual basis. He later agreed to dismiss the charges against Adani and several co-defendants, but he criticized what NBC News called the Trump administration’s “highly unusual” conduct.

Garaufis has refused to dismiss charges against remaining defendants, saying the Justice Department provided “no new reasons to dismiss counts one and five, and no additional facts to support the reasons given for the requested dismissal.” He also accused McCotter of improperly intervening, saying McCotter had “eschewed the professional opinions of innumerable officials from various federal offices and replaced them with his singular judgment.”

Tyler is the second federal prosecutor fired this month after disagreements with senior Justice Department officials over a high-profile case, CBS News reported. Earlier, the department fired Matthew Evans, a Minnesota prosecutor who had been investigating ICE officer Christian Castro over the shooting of Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Several sources told CBS News that Evans is now under investigation.