Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the federal district court in Brooklyn dismissed the Justice Department's fraud indictment against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and some of his co-defendants today, at the department's own request [1]. That sentence, on its own, is the outcome DOJ asked for. The other 47 pages are the part worth reading.
Garaufis did not grant the request whole. He refused to dismiss two counts against five other co-defendants, and he ordered the department to come back with a fuller justification for dropping those charges by August 31 [1]. Until that filing lands and satisfies him, a piece of the case the government wants ended remains open on his docket.
The ruling's language is unusually direct for an order granting the government what it asked for. Garaufis called the department's decision-making "concerning" [1]. He went further about one official by name, writing that the conduct of DOJ's Trent McCotter was "unbecoming of his office" [1]. Judges routinely grant government dismissal requests in a paragraph. A 47-page order that criticizes the requesting party while granting the request is a judge deliberately building a record, one that will outlast the case it closes and that any future litigant, or congressional committee, can quote back to the department.
There is also the question of what surrounded the dismissal effort. According to CBS's reporting, a commitment of $10 billion in US investment was offered by Adani's side as the case moved toward dismissal [1]. That figure is reported, not part of an adjudicated record, and the ruling granted the dismissal regardless. It sits in the public account of this case next to the judge's word "concerning," and readers can hold both.
The order arrives during a leadership change at the department: Todd Blanche, confirmed 50-49 on August 8, was sworn in as attorney general today. The ruling does not tie its findings to that timeline, and neither will we. What the record shows is narrower and firmer: career prosecutors obtained a fraud indictment, the department later moved to abandon it, and the judge who signed off documented his concerns about the abandonment in the order itself.
What happens next has a date on it. By August 31, the Justice Department owes Judge Garaufis a justification for dismissing the final two counts against the five remaining co-defendants [1]. Either it files one that persuades him, or those counts stay alive in a case the government has publicly finished trying to end. The judge's order made sure that choice, too, will happen on the record.
