Thursday Scoop: Wicked Witch of the East

Welcome to the Morning Scoop for June 28. The witch hunt continues with interesting developments, and we’re just waiting to hear what President Trump is going to tweet about. Expect that soon. 

Yesterday, our team of student journalists wrote about AP World History, the purpose of higher education, and a student expelled from the University of Chicago. Stay in school, kids. 

Court Documents Reveal Manafort Accepted $10 Million from Russians

Paul Manafort not admitting anything to anyone back in 2016. (image: Flickr)

Late yesterday, court documents were unsealed to uncover some truth about former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. According to Reuters, FBI investigators found that a Manafort-controlled company received $10 million from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Deripaska, a wealthy figure who works with metals, is known to be close with Russian President Vladimir Putin and was one of the Russians to be sanctioned by the U.S. back in April.The discovery provides key evidence for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump ties with Russia, which the president has notoriously called a “witch hunt.”

Among other things, Manafort was indicted last year on charges of money laundering, bank and tax fraud, and failing to register a pro-Russian foreign agent. This discovery also comes one day after a federal judge declined to dismiss a case against Manafort where he claimed that Mueller did not have the power to charge him with a crime.

Racist Messages from ‘The Cocaine Cowboy’ Could End a Texas Tech Fraternity

With the rise of progressivism and equality among the young people in America today, one may predict that fraternity men might also follow this trend. Any hope of this was tarnished for Texas Tech University on June 21 when a conversation full of racial prejudice surfaced in Tau Kappa Epsilon’s GroupMe chat.

One member who’s contact name is “the cocaine cowboy” essentially persisted that a genocide would be a wise financial decision for this country.  His brothers appeared to support him as one of them responded to his message with, “Kyle run for president in the future please.” Later the true identity of “the cocaine cowboy” was revealed as Kyle Mitchell who was the president of Texas Tech’s Interfraternity Council.

To find out what Texas Tech did about the racist remarks, read more from Courtney Good here.

Primaries Nationwide From East to the Heartland Shift Towards Left and Right

On June 26, voters across the country participated in their own respective primary elections in Colorado, Maryland, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Mississippi.

In the country’s largest city by population and national prominence, New York City voters in New York’s 14th Congressional District, which encompasses certain neighborhoods in the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx, overwhelmingly voted for local community activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A member of the Democratic Socialist of America and a former Bernie Sanders campaign organizer, Cortez, who also worked as a waitress and bartender after graduating from Boston University in 2011 with a degree in economics as well as international relations, defeated longtime Democratic congressman Joe Crowly by more than 57 percent of all votes cast.

And that was just New York; to read about the other primaries, check out Duane Murphy’s report here.

Today in a Tweet: World Cup Continues

Columbia is playing Senegal this morning, and Twitter is stoked. Today there will also be games with Japan vs. Poland, Pamama vs. Tunisia, and England vs. Belgium. 

Last But Not Least: The List of Potential SCOTUS Replacements Has Been Released

Yesterday, Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced that he would be retiring from the bench as of July 31. The vacancy will allow President Trump to appoint a new justice, who will likely be staunchly conservative and confirmed by a conservative Congress quickly.

Among his top picks are Amul Thapar, a favorite of Senator Mitch McConnell; Thomas Hardiman, who was runner-up for Neil Gorsuch’s seat; and Mike Lee, Utah senator.

For the complete list of potential nominees, read the White House’s official release here.

Thursday’s Morning Scoop was made possible by Brandon Walker, Kayleigh Shultis, Elena Neale, Duane Murphy, Courtney Good, and the CMN staff. At some point we stopped listing the year at the top of the Morning Scoop, but it’s probably to make ourselves forget how many more of these we have to write. It’s hard to be clever every day.