New Delhi: India roped in a lobbying firm to arrange even the ‘routine engagements’ with the US government including External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s meeting with CIA Director John Ratcliffe in June 2025, The Wire reported.
Explaining India’s deeply engaging ties with Trump campaign veteran Jason Miller’s lobbying firm called SHW Partners LLC, the report pointed to the firm’s involvement when a multi-party delegation from India wanted to meet with US Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In another instance when PM Modi’s post tagged president Trump, as usual it was not embassy staff who flagged it to the presidents’ communication team, according to the report.
The Indian Embassy, according to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing submitted December 7, 2025, outsourced almost all diplomatic contact to the lobbying firm for six months, covering India’s military action against Pakistan and the trade negotiation with Trump administration, with a government source claiming that though India traditionally hired lobbying firms for ‘special cases’ but ‘not for routine engagements’.
The filing reportedly revealed that there were at least 60 contacts between Miller’s firm and US government officials including those from cabinet secretaries to White House chiefs of staff to Fox News anchors.
It is reported that India has paid US $900,000 to Miller’s firm for six months of work in two payments of US $450,000 each on April 25 and July 28 in 2025 with the total contract is ‘US $1.8 million for the year’.
India is reported to be ‘first – and only – disclosed client’ of Miller after Trump returned to office in 2025.
Miller was a senior communications adviser during Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and later he was made the senior adviser during the 2020 and 2024 campaigns.
It is reported citing FARA filing that the partnership began on April 24, 2025 with Miller and the Embassy of India filing their ‘FARA registration on the US Department of Justice database’.