Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Legal firestorm

When US District Judge Aileen Cannon, 41, was up for Senate confirmation in 2020, she was asked whether she’d had discussions about loyalty to then-President Donald Trump. “No,” Cannon responded under oath. Now, however, suspicions of Trump loyalty have exploded around Cannon, who on Monday issued a sweeping decision granting Trump’s request to appoint a special master to assess documents seized by the FBI in its Aug. 8 search of his Florida home. Beyond a typical review for material covered by attorney-client privilege, Cannon made the unprecedented judgment that executive privilege may be considered, too. This despite broad consensus among legal experts that the only executive who can assert that privilege right now is President Joe Biden—not Trump.

Aileen Cannon speaks virtually during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in 2020. Source: Bloomberg

Cannon, who has said she is a member of the right-wing Federalist Society, also ordered the Justice Department to temporarily stop using the documents, including highly classified files, in its criminal investigation of Trump. Both moves elicited howls as almost entirely unmoored from law or precedent: Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who was a senior member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the probe of alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, called Cannon’s ruling “nutty” and “lawless.” New York University law professor Chris Sprigman said it was “partisan hack judging,” while prominent lawyer Ted Boutrous derided Cannon’s order as “the opposite of judicial restraint.” Cannon, who took the unorthodox step of announcing her intent well before hearing both sides, agreed with Trump’s lawyers that the investigation of the former president needed additional “safeguards” unavailable to ordinary citizens. Trump appeared to praise Cannon on Monday, saying “it takes courage and ‘guts’ to fight a totally corrupt Department of ‘Justice’ and the FBI.”  —Natasha Solo-Lyons and David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.

After Labor Day, it’s back to the office for Wall Street. Big banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are clearing the final hurdles for full-time, in-person work, and once again reminding employees that they’re wanted in the office. After a few false starts, there’s a sense that this time it’s for real. 

The United Nations atomic watchdog agency called for the establishment of a security zone around a Kremlin-controlled nuclear plant in Ukraine after reporting damage at the facility, warning that fighting poses a “constant threat” to safety. 

Vladimir Putin, whose war on Ukraine has likely killed tens of thousands and has triggered war crimes probes, sought to position Russia as leading the defense of “traditional”cultural values.  

Vladimir Putin. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

A high-profile push by Congress to rein in the nation’s biggest internet companies is at risk of failing, with time running out to pass major legislation ahead of midterm elections.

Stocks trimmed losses from nearly oversold levels while bond yields soared on the views the Federal Reserve will stay hawkish as it seeks to tamp down inflation. Here’s your markets wrap.

The Bank of Canada is set deliver a fourth consecutive outsized interest-rate hike to slow the nation’s economy and drag inflation down from four-decade highs.

On climate change, Republicans need a crash course in capitalism,  Michael Bloomberg writes in Bloomberg Opinion. Red-state lawmakers are increasingly trying to interfere in private firms’ decision-making, he writes, but they’re making a terrible mistake.

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More than a century ago, the Osage Nation, whose government had just been dismantled by the US, negotiated a unique arrangement: All the mineral rights to its nearly 1.5 million-acre reservation would be put in a federally managed trust. Those rights soared in value when oil drilling took off in the state in the 1910s, and tales of Osage wealth swept the country— many exaggerated and racist, painting rich Osages as unworthy and financially reckless. The Osage people were supposed to be safeguarded by the US government because of the agreement their leaders negotiated. Instead, federal policies allowed a massive transfer of Osage land and wealth to outsiders that the Osage Nation is now working to get back. A new Bloomberg podcast investigates a transfer of Native American wealth—and how US policies helped create a modern Oklahoma empire.

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