thought i was picking up seaweed. >> okay, paddling from the bahamas to florida to raise money for cystic fibrosis charity. she and her group were halfway through when the shark showed up. >> i saw my husband's face drop, and i saw him tell the captain to shut off the engine and him then guide me into the boat. as soon as he did that, i knew it was a shark. >> she was able to get out of the water. she got into the boat, but she didn't let the shark stop her. after a ten-minute break, she got back on her board and paddled on all the way to florida for a very good cause. thanks for joining me. i'm christine romans. have a great weekend, everybody. "cnn this morning" starts right now. well, good morning, everyone. it is friday. we are glad you are with us. what a day in america yesterday. the whole landscape has

certainly changed. >> we were talking about before the show the scale of the changes over the course of the last year and a half, two years, are dramatic. no matter what side you're on this is a very different moment. >> all because of the high court. we'll get to that in a moment. "five things to know." the supreme court guts affirmative action in higher education prompting protests and questions over what comes next. and more crucial rulings are expected in hours centering on lgbtq rights and student loans. big developments in investigations of donald trump, the january 6th case a former official with his campaign is cooperating with prosecutors. now this comes as we learn the special counsel is not done investigating the former president's handling of classified documents. a man wanted on charges related to january 6th was arrested near former president obama's d.c. home. officials say the man had multiple guns and materiels to make explosives. protests in france after the

police shooting of a 17-year-old. hundreds of arrests have been made across the country. the fourth of july travel surge officially here. the tsa says today will be the busiest yet for airports with more than 2.8 million passengers expected to take off for the holiday. "cnn this morning" starts right now. well, as phil just said this morning we are waking up in a very different america, a post-affirmative action america, after the supreme court declared race cannot be an expressed factor in college admissions in a historic ruling this up-ends 50 years of jurisprudence and markets a huge and immediate shift for students. the class entering college this fall will be the last affirmative action class. it's just the latest sweeping change ushered in by a conservative super majority court over the past year and a half. it was this time last year when

that same court overturned roe vs. wade and one year later 14 states ban most abortions. >> there is also expanding gun rights. last year the court issued the meaning of the second amendment saying the right to keep and bear arms allows you to do so in public. now with the affirmative action decision, president biden is once again vowing to push back. and this is what he's saying about that super majority court. >> we should never allow the country to walk away from the dream upon which it was founded. discrimination still exists in america. discrimination still exists in america. today's decision does not change that. >> president biden, the congressional black caucus questions its own legitimacy, is this a rogue court? >> this is not a normal court. >> that was cnn's arlette saenz.

we want to get to jessica schneider who joins us live from washington. jess, obviously there was some sense this was coming. it's now here. what's your read on things? >> my read, phil and poppy, colleges and universities are likely scouring this opinion, really trying to figure out how they can restructure their admissions policies to comply. the supreme court in this opinion does leave a little bit of gray area. for example, schools are essentially no longer permitted to have students check a box indicating race. but yet students are permitted to talk about how their race has impacted their lives in essays or otherwise. and amid all of this uncertainty there's also been outcry along with praise for this decision. >> there's still more to unravel, basic rights, by any court in history. >> president joe biden slamming the court after it up-ended

decades on affirmative action. chief justice john roberts says harvard and the university of north carolina. roberts writing the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual not on the basis of race. many universities have for too long done just the opposite. justice sonia sotomayor, the first woman of color on the court, issued a fiery dissent accusing the majority of employing an unjustified exercise of power that will only serve to highlight the court's own impotence in the face of an america whose cries for equality resound. the two cases were brought by students for fair admissions led by activist edward bloom who has fought for a decade to eradicate affirmative action. the case against harvard was brought on behalf of asian students arguing they were disadvantaged because harvard prioritized other minorities and ranked them lower for personality traits. >> we should be treated on the

basis of our merits. we should be treated on the basis of how hard we work, our studies, s.a.t. scores, our grades. a name blind, race blind process. >> reporter: critics say the ruling is a setback for racial and ethnic equality in education. >> i'm really most worried about the youth and the students younger than us in high school and middle school and elementary school who may not get the same opportunity that i did. >> reporter: the divide reflected in sharply worded opinions from the court's two black justices. justice clarence thomas writing, justice jackson's race-infused world view falls flat at each step. justice ketanji brown jackson firing back. justice thomas has too many strawmen here. several presidential contenders applaud the decision including tim scott. >> this is a good day for america. this is a day we understand being judged by the content of our character not the color of our skin is what the

constitution wants. >> reporter: the biden administration working to provide guidance to colleges nationwide. >> we're going to produce by september and publish best practices around college admission practices to ensure across the country that our students know that this administration is behind them and we support them making it to college. >> reporter: now there is a caveat in this case. the supreme court said that u.s. military service academies can actually continue to take race into consideration as a factor in admissions, essentially exempting those military schools from this ruling. that was spelled out in a footnote in the majority opinion. poppy and phil, the chief justice said that in the footnote. but justice ketanji brown jackson called it out in the dissent saying that the court was prioritizing what she called diversity in the bunker versus the boardroom. a lot of back and forth in this case. >> no question. jessica schneider, thanks so much. we're going to have a lot of conversations surrounding the supreme court throughout the course of the next couple of hours. that will include a sitdown with

education secretary miguel cardona. he will join us. why he's calling the affirmative action ruling a, quote, step backwards. >> a lot ahead on that. big developments in both of special counsel jack smith's investigations of former president donald trump. we are now learning a former trump campaign official is cooperating in smith's probe of election efforts overturning the 2020 election. his name is mike roman, a key witness in the fake elector scheme. he pleaded the fifth when the january 6th committee asked him about it. >> and what was your role, if any, in having alternate electors meet in states mr. trump lost including pennsylvania? >> the fifth. >> did you discuss the alternate electors plan with president trump either before or after the electors met and cast votes on december 14, 2020? >> the fifth. >> in the classified documents probe we're told prosecutors have been questioning a top

trump campaign aide. former president allegedly showed a classified map and told her not to get to close because he shouldn't be showing it to her. >> as you can see a lot of developments on both those probes. let's go straight to our senior crime and justice correspondent katelyn polantz on how significant they are. talk to us about mike roman. >> reporter: the special counsel's office, they're getting answers. that is the bottom line here. this person, mike roman, he was a campaign official in the 2020 election for donald trump. he was one of the people working on election day operations, and clearly someone involved in organizing those fake electeors in battleground states. what's so significant about this there are a lot of signs the special counsel's office is drilling down on that fake elector scheme and they're in a very end stage of the investigation there. and what's indicative of what

they're doing, they're getting answers from people who refused earlier to provide answers like to the house investigators whenever they've questioned mike roman and he took the fifth. but in this circumstance he's answering, he's willing to answer because he's willing to cooperate because he has a layer of protection as far as we know. that allows him to become a witness who can talk not just about his communications with potentially trump himself but with others who were orchestrating that scheme, people like rudy giuliani, other senior people around donald trump after the 2020 election. >> katelyn, on another investigation that's ongoing from the special counsel's office, we learned the special counsel's office is still investigating the former president's handling of documents even after the indictment. you're my legal expert that i always go to. why? there's already an indictment. why would they still be investigating? >> reporter: there is already an indictment, but this is something that happens in

investigations. this is the investigation around donald trump and classified records, so it's an investigation like not many others. but we are learning that there's this grand jury in miami that's still cutting subpoenas. there are still witnesses being approached. there may be avenues and even potentially other people, maybe other charges that the prosecutors are still looking at wanting to use the grand jury and get more information about. we don't know exactly what lane they're pursuing right now, but this investigation is still active. it is not over even though we already have this indictment on the books of donald trump and his co-defendant walt nauta. >> a major player in trump world effectively running his campaign? >> reporter: she is indeed but she is one of the people donald trump's close circle who is also a witness. this is in the documents

investigation. in the indictment we knew donald trump had shown a map of a military operation, a classified map, to someone who was a representative of his political action committee. we have confirmed that is susie wiles still working with him. she is a person who spoke to investigators multiple times, clearly is part of that indictment, potentially could be called to trial, may be one of those people on the list. he can't talk about this documents case at all. pretty significant there and also our sources tell our reporting team the trump inner circle was blind sided by the news she is a witness on this. >> i'm not sure there's a more important than susie wiles. thank you. washington metro police arrested a man with numerous firearms to make an explosive. it was blocks from former president obama's home.

officials say he had an arrest warrant related to the january 6 capital attack. they say he also made threats on an internet live stream. what do we know? >> reporter: because of an open warrant related to the january 6th attack of the capitol, and it's hard to say how close he was to doing damage here, but the fbi's join january task force is disturbing. he was in a van in former president obama's d.c. neighborhood with guns and materiel to make a malakhov cocktail. that ars nail was enough police requested an explosive disposal

team to actually sweep taranto's van at the scene. cnn was told there is no indication of a direct threat to the obamas and the spokesperson declined to comment whether or not they were even home. taranto is active on youtube. you can see one of those videos on your screen right now. that video posted showing him inside the capitol on january 6. we also know that yesterday morning before the arrest a truth social account with the same user name as taranto's page reposted a post from former president trump that included the purported d.c. address of the obamas. and the repost reads, quote, got them surrounded. now, of course, poppy, there's the question of motive which we don't know something investigators are digging into. >> gabe, thank you very much, for the reporting. keep us posted.

today is the busiest day to fly. it's expected to be a record-breaking holiday travel weekend. you're looking at live pictures inside dulles international airport in the washington, d.c., area. luggage piling up at the baggage claim there. tsa officials say they're expecting agents to screen nearly 3 million passengers, nearly half a million more, than this day last year. it comes after days of travelers getting stranded in airports across the country because of delays and cancellations. live at laguardia airport, omar, give me good news. we have seen your reporting, all of the pictures, the horror stories over the course of the last couple of days. what should people expect today? >> reporter: for anyone who travels on a holiday weekend, sometimes it's hard to know what to expect. honestly, almost anything would be better than what people saw from last weekend into the week where we saw thousands of delays, tens of thousands -- or thousands of cancellations, tens of thousands of delays.

over a combination of severe weather but also staffing shortages at u.s. airlines and at the federal aviation administration, the faa, especially with air traffic controllers. and the reason all of that context is important is because that's what they're building from into what is expected to be a record weekend for travel over this fourth of july. and not just by air but by road as well. aaa estimating that nearly over 40 million people are expected to drive. that's up from last year. over 4 million are expected to fly. that's up over 10% from last year. and even up from a record travel year of 2019. and then over 3 million expected to travel by other means which is up 24% from last year. but then when it comes to flying, tsa expected to screen nearly 3 million passengers. 2.8 million is the current record from a few weeks ago. obviously they have their tests

laid out. any improvement is a good improvement. >> a little bit of a low bar. let's hope it's exceeded. omar jimenez, thank you. the majority conservative court with a landmark decision on affirmative action. we'll tell you what is at stake and how this reshapes america especially for students with our exp experts. plus this -- thousands of police deployed as clashes over the police killing of a teenager in france. a third night of riots leading to nearly 700 arrests. what the teen's mother is now saying about the fallout. we'll be live in france. ng all . ...or blasting the air conditioning. because the tempur-breeze feels up to 10° cooler, all night long. for a limited time, save $500 on all-new tempur-breeze mattresses. music (i swear) jaycee tried gain flings for the first time the other day...and forgot where she was.

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fallout this morning for many people who disagree with the supreme court's decision yesterday which guts affirmative action in higher education. the 6-3 ruling will reshape college admissions immediately. and likely up-end diversity policies in business and beyond. president biden not happy with the decision. >> president biden, the congressional black caucus said the question of its own legitimacy. is this a rogue court? >> this is not a normal court. >> with us now civil rights lawyer randolph mclaughlin, cnn

politics commentator earl lewis. a consequential morning in america. as phil and i were saying this follows overturning roe vs. wade, the decision on guns which totally changed the reading of the second amendment, and now this. what does this mean? >> honestly, i think step back for a moment, and it's not -- when we look at the impact of donald trump's presidency, this is what the lasting legacy of the trump presidency will be. it's not the wall. it's not the tax cuts. it's not any other thing. both former president trump and senate leadership in the form of leader mccome made remaking reshaping the federal judiciary a huge priority. and abortion, for instance, and affirmative action have long been targets of allies of the former president. it's just a fact.

this will persist for generations. we in america get caught up on the day-to-day little political fights, and some of those will come and go, but courts, judges remain on courts for their lifetimes. and this, mark it down now. you're going to keep seeing decisions like this over the next 20 years. that's how the judiciary works. >> what's been interesting to me having followed conservative legal movement for a number of years, this has certainly been a goal, certainly something they push towards, and i think when you have the 6-3 majority elliot is talking about, the real legacy of the trump administration, there's an expectation this ruling was coming to some degree. one of those involved in trying to get the case in front of the courts spoke to our kate bolduan. >> what do you say to the millions of people who point to affirmative action, race-based admissions, as a reason for their success in life?

>> i can point to race-based decisions the reason asian americans are being discriminated against right now. if you're an asian american, you had to score 273 points higher on the s.a.t. to have the same chance for admission to harvard as a black person. i understand lives are improved but that opportunity should be made available to people of every race not just one. >> what's your response to that? >> my response to that is very straightforward. affirmative action programs should not discriminate or penalize any racial group, whether they're asians or other racial groups. that's categorically true. should not. and the courts basically recognized that. here is what i'm here also to say. affirmative action is not dead, it's mortally wounded. this court didn't go as far as they were planning to go, certainly in justice thomas'

mind. he wanted to overrule and declare affirmative action completely illegal and unconstitutional. this court was unwilling to go that far. it was not yet a majority to say affirmative action is unconstitutional. there's a small group, justice alito, justice thomas, and maybe a couple others who would agree with that. there's still a window open in this case. there's still an opportunity. diversity is still a compelling state interest. all the judges, except for thomas, who has his own issues with this, all of the judges agree that is still a compelling state interest. the only thing that was decided here categorically was these two programs weren't constitutionally sound. that's all. >> so that is indicative of the roberts' court moving incrementally instead of a sweeping way. laura coates, let me bring you in to this conversation. the way justice sotomayor see that is in this scathing dissent, in her words, is lipstick on a pig.

>> well, it's really a realization she's had and talked about over the course of her career, which is an interesting juxtaposition with her and justice thomas. one seeing it as racial sensitivity. one seeing it as racial paternalism. this is all supposed to be rooted not in one's philosophical ideology but instead based on the constitution and also the context surrounding it. remember, the 14th amendment is a post-civil war amendment intended to course correct those disadvantaged, those who have been discriminated against, black people in america, expanded to include other racial groups as time has continued. you saw in the dissent as you saw in the concurring opinion of justice thomas the conversation really about what the intention of that was supposed to be in the long term. now, of course, thomas spent about ten-plus pages going over not only the dissent generally but also ketanji brown jackson,

the youngest of the supreme court justices, of course, in her career. he focused instead on the idea of a racialized ideology driving her particular perspective as opposed to looking at what the constitution, what the actual intent was, and beyond it. what we saw here really, and i heard your prior guest talking about what the conundrum can be and how this will work in practice, that's really the crux of, i think, the next frontier of arguments here. how do you on the one hand say that you cannot consider race as a factor and on the other hand have a sentence that says you can have a student or applicant discuss such things in a way that talks about their identity, their lived experience, their journey? what is an admissions officer truly to do to avoid future litigation? this will be a difficult task. >> a difficult task with a lot of litigation to come without

any question. laura noted the dissent from justice ketanji brown jackson. it was quite visceral, to some degree, and obviously very personal to her. at one point, we've let them eat cake in obliviousness today, pulling the rip cord announcing colorblindness by legal fiat by deeming so does not make it so in life. >> justice sotomayor made the same point, and for all of us who are sort of affirmative action babies, meaning we came in under this regime and got a shot at elite learning and a chance to really succeed in society because of it, ketanji brown jackson is certainly one of those people. if you look at the way things were, she's a realist when it comes to this, at harvard -- harvard started in the 1600s. it's much older than the united states. for 300-plus years they allowed into the college 12 or fewer

black students prior to 1970. all of that changed when affirmative action was created. and the minute it happens, it gives rise to this extraordinary group of people who go on to run major corporations. they're running merrill lynch and they're running american express, merck. and then right behind that you get the cohort in the 1990s with a guy named barack obama, and ketanji brown jackson, and so sonia sotomayor talks about this as well this is what it was intended to do. this is why it's not just something that's irrelevant as justice thomas seemed to insist that it might be. >> to your point, also, we have to remember there was a day when justice clarence thomas was an advocate for affirmative action. he has talked openly about how it was one of the things that propelled him into yale law school. then he became very critical of

what it meant for him and others after. what i'd like to do is play two pieces of sound. the first is sonia sotomayor talking about being an affirmative action baby. the next is justice clarence thomas speaking to "60 minutes" in 2007 about viewing it in diametrically opposed way. here they are. >> i am a product of affirmative action. i am the perfect affirmative action baby. my test scores were not comparable to that of my colleagues at princeton or yale. but if we had gone through the traditional numbers route of those institutions, it would have been highly questionable whether i would have been accepted. >> honestly, honestly believed that yale thought that having a kid who came from working people in the south, who had grown up through segregation, that this kid who had prospered, who had

done well every single place he'd ever been, whether an all-white school, all-black school, had always done well, he will do well here. and it will benefit both him and yale. that's what i thought. now that's what you do when you're 21, 22 years of age. you can make a mistake. well, that isn't what it was converted to. >> what was it converted to? >> it was converted to, well, you're here because you're black. that degree meant one thing for whites and another thing for blacks. >> it was discounted. >> it was discounted, right. >> you write in the book that your yale degree was worth 15 cents. >> well, you know, steve, i have still a 15 cent sticker on the frame that my law degree is in. it's tainted, so i just leave it in the basement. >> he had a hard time getting a job even with that degree. >> justice thomas has not left his personal feelings and

animosity towards yale, towards affirmative action in the basement. he's put it right front and center. he's made his personal issues the harm that he feels, a constitutional question. i'm sorry, justice thomas obviously has an issue with affirmative action, but we should not allow one judge to determine what our national constitutional policies are. he's the one who wants to overturn it. it is roberts' hallmark. just like dobbs eventually overturned roe we may eventually see this also overturned. what will we do about it today and now going forward? >> it's interesting watching those two clips next to each other. it affirms this idea there's a lot of different ways to be a black person or a person of color, whatever it might be, in america. and they both have completely plausible reasoning for what they took away from affirmative

action. i'm not going to quibble with either of them. there is an impact when you take affirmative action away. by way of example, if you restrict or limit or sort of reduce the number of black people who come to a university, you're significantly limiting the number of women as well because about two-thirds of black people in college today are young women and so you're going to have to contend with some of these real impacts on changing the face, pun intended, of a future student body. i just think even setting aside the personal views of whether affirmative action is stigmatizing or harmful or whatever it might be, it's going to have an impact on what universities look like starting next year or the year after. >> laura? >> you know, it's interesting because on the one hand people might forget justice thomas was once the chair of the equal opportunity commission which is interesting to think about, equal opportunity commission and

the evolution he seems to have had. everyone talking about affirmative action, i think of the conversations happening across the nation, here is what it is and here is what it's not. affirmative action is not one door for black and brown applicants and then you decide whether they're qualified. it often is used in the admissions process that otherwise qualified applicants who have met the criteria, albeit subjectively as a violinist, a cellist, a legacy, someone who is an athlete, a whole host of circumstances, and oftentimes the contemplation of what might distinguish one student from another to contribute to the overall community. that's normally how it's viewed and used in operations and admissions. that was always the case, they also just happened to have different colored skin. number two when talking about the brown versus board of education, think back to that

infamous experiment that spoke to the sociological and psychological impact of racism and segregation. part of what motivated that supreme court was that there was a test that had black children handed dolls that were black. handed dolls that were white, and they asked them what did they think about the characteristics of those dolls? black children looked at the black dolls and overwhelmingly thought they were bad, they were wrong, they were evil, they were ignorant, they were dumb. that's what motivated the courts to hold on saying racism has a psychological impact as well on white students as well who were viewing the same criteria. conversations from justice thomas and beyond about the impact of race in america is still very much at issue today given his own holding about the impact of affirmative action he believes on himself. >> everyone stay with us. there is a lot more to talk about here, really about what is ahead. also, this news from around the world. officials in france struggling to contain unrest that has

spread across the country. hundreds of protesters are in custody this morning. the violence sparking a second crisis meeting for president macron. plus, cnn has exclusively learned the russian general accused of knowing about the rebellion over the past weekend was a secret vip member of the wagner group. we're live in moscow with the very latest. ♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪ and there he is. chaz. the rec league's self-crowned pickleball king. do you just bow down? no you de-thrown the king. pedialyte. 3x the electrolytes.

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this morning a third night of violent nationwide protests across france after police shot and killed a 17-year-old during a traffic stop. you're watching video of angry demonstrators shooting off fireworks at police and lighting fires to schools, town halls and police stations. 40,000 officers were deployed to quell the protests. more than 600 people have been arrested. the officer who shot the teen has been charged with voluntary homicide. cnn's nic robertson is live outside paris. nic, what are we hearing at this point from the teen's mother? >> reporter: she is saying as she led what was initially a peaceful protest until it turned violent, look, i don't hold all the police responsible. i don't blame all of the police. i just blame the one who shot my son, the person i love. she's been very clear on that,

which kind of matches in a little way what the government is saying that the response so far has been unjustified in its scale, that what the protesters are doing is damaging the infrastructure that regular people in france use. take a look behind me. the bus station here. 12 buses here, 26 in this neighborhood torched, a tram as well. the total cost of that $11.5 million ballpark. that's only one place in france. you have cities like lille, bordeaux in the south, you have in the mediterranean there cities there affected in the center of france. lyon has been affected by the protests as well. it's happening all over the country. i asked the transport minister here this morning, what do you do to put out the flames of these protests? >> translator: it's in the interests of those who are expressing their anger today to protect our public service and

then we live in the society of law this justice system needs to be able to carry out its work. no one is above the law but everyone has the rights protected by the law. we also need to leave the justice system in tranquility. it's what we owe to the young man who was killed -- calm, tranquility and justice carried out in good conditions. >> reporter: it is bringing in recovery equipment right now for the buses, we're moving. the concern is the violence is going to get worse and it's going to spread. the president macron is about to hold an emergency crisis meeting with his cabinet. there are protests planned tonight. nahel's funeral is planned for saturday. this is not over yet. >> nic robertson, thank you so m much. documents show sergey surovikin was a secret vip member of the wagner group.

some newspapers and blogs report that he was arrested over last weekend's brief rebellion. a government official is denying that saying he's not in any pretrial detention facility. i don't want to comment on the nonsense of, quote, an underground detention facility. this general, though, hasn't been seen for days. we should note neither has wagner's chief, yevgeny prigozhin. what do we know? >> reporter: prigozhin hasn't been seen for days and nor has this general, general surovikin. and the kremlin are refusing to comment on his whereabouts. you heard that local official saying he's not in a pretrial detention center but he may well be somewhere else perhaps being held on a military base. we just don't know where he is. but these documents that were given to cnn exclusively do show that general surovikin, who is the deputy commander, remember,

of russian forces in ukraine, was on a list of vip members of the wagner mercenary group. there were 30 other people there, high level military and intelligence officials according to the dossier center, a russian investigative group, that has obtained these documents. it's not clear what vip membership actually entails, whether it means they're on the payroll or there's any other kind of financial benefits. there's no evidence of that that has been disclosed. but it does imply an overly close relationship between the senior figures in the russian military and the wagner mercenary group that staged that attempted uprising in russia at the weekend and, of course, remember that wagner was able to move without opposition from the military into at least one major russian city. this raises the question of potential divided loyalties. poppy and phil, back to you.

>> matthew chance in moscow, thank you. well, top trump campaign aide now revealed as a key figure in his classified documents case who is she, and what trump allegedly showed her while discussing military operations is coming up next. we handcraft every stearns & foster® using the finest materials, like indulgent memory foam, and ultra-conforming innersprings, for a beautiful mattress, d indescribable comfort. for a limited time, save $400 on selt stearns & foster mattresses.

sources are telling cnn they are not finished investigating. it's not clear what prosecutors are looking for. we do know they're continuing to

question witnesses. one of the people they're talking to, top trump campaign aide susie wiles. a source tells cnn trump allegedly showed her a classified map of a military site at his bedminster golf club in 2021. meantime,yet another investigation dogging the former president, a former trump campaign 2020 campaign official is, we've learned, cooperating with the special counsel in the probe. laura coates, errol lewis is back with us. the fact that he's cooperating, those are really important questions that he wouldn't answer to the committee that cooperation would suggest he is now answering to jack smith. >> exactly right. if you are granted immunity can you speak quite freely. they must be worried about what he is or is not saying. this is something donald trump

has always tried to rely on you're my guy, you're on my team. attorney/client privilege. we're all in this together. that's not necessarily the case. attorneys are officers of the court. >> he's key for a specific reason in terms of suggesting fake electors. >> that's right. the fake elector scheme i think got a breath of new life when it was struck down just the other day. even as a theory i think prosecutors may have a different approach to this. they may have some clarity, enough clarity that they may decide to go further with the investigation and even start considering charges in connection with it. >> laura, can i ask susie wiles may not be a household name. that may be design on her part, a powerful figure within the trump campaign or within florida politics for years including before they had a falling out. governor ron desantis. the idea she's involved or has been involved in this, what does that tell you about this?

>> this is a very wide net that's been cast. every time we're hearing a public statement from the president in reaction to this indictment, a question is raised. were there other people in a room where anything is allege that had could actually give and shed some light on an issue? we are learning a lot about the people who are consequential who might have been in front of the cameras. now is the behind-the-scenes aspects of all of these investigations, the diligence of investigation that has to actually uncover these things. it will be very telling going forward, phil, to figure out to what extent somebody is actually a cooperator in the sense they otherwise refused to give system and be heard unless they got an immunity deal or were voluntarily cooperating lenient

proactive citizen. >> i'm interested on this front by why jack smith is continuing to probe in the mar-a-lago case even after this 37-count indictment. you say there are two possible explanations. >> let's maybe say two or three. maybe considering more charges against former president trump -- more charges against additional people, so bringing more people in and charging them with crimes -- or not adding to the charges in any way but bolstering what they already have. >> what they'll argue in court? >> what they'll argue in court or additional arguments that might support more acts of obstruction, more conduct they could use to charge obstruction of justice. it's really just making their case stronger in any way, but it's hard to tell which of those three options it might be. >> what are we even here for? we need a single answer definitively. >> the single answer is maybe. >> maybe. i love that.

errol, the idea -- i'm fixated on the susie wiles involvement or whatever the her role is. i just think, and it's hard for people maybe to understand this, she's incredibly important inside the orbit. we don't know what this means at all. i think cnn reported the trump campaign was surprised by this development. to the extent that matters inside the campaign and political apparatus. >> it matters tremendously. politically, as pundits you look at it and say that's one of the insiders, maybe she's turning on him. put that apside. there could be a superseding indictment, a real problem for him, if she's informing the special prosecutor about additional instances in which confidential materials were either leaked or displayed or otherwise put forward in a different location than what we had heard about. if this isn't just a mar-a-lago dinner or an instance of

bedminster, if there are other documents, things like a map that we hadn't heard much before, he could be in for a world of trouble. >> i went to errol because he's a political insider and i thought we would vibe on that. >> and he said superseding indictment. >> he cast that aside. >> lawyers. >> when you go to harvard, what do you expect from a harvard law school grad? >> a mistake short sided on my part. and i have been -- >> it's because you were mean to elliot. >> i wasn't mean to elliot. >> oh, we are yankees fans. >> we're good. coming up for us, this -- >> the defendant is not guilty so say we all. >> a very emotional reaction from scot peterson, the former parkland resource officer, acquitted for failing to act during the deadly school shooting.

a jury in florida finding resource officer scot peterson not guilty on all charges. he broke down in tears as the sentence was read on thursday. prosecutors had accused him of ignoring his training and waiting outside the high school as a gunman inside killed 17 people including 14 students back in 2018. cnn's carlos suarez reports. the defendant is not guilty.

>> reporter: an emotional scot peterson breaking down in a florida courtroom after a jury finds the former school resource officer not guilty on 11 charges ranging from felony child neglect to perjury. peterson was the first law enforcement officer on the scene the day 17 people, including 14 students, were gunned down at marjory stoneman douglas high school in what remains the deadliest high school shooting ever. >> we've got our life back after four and a half years. it's been an emotional roller coaster for so long. >> reporter: state prosecutors accused peterson of ignoring his training and doing nothing, failing to confront the gunman, to save lives. >> what was expected was for scot peterson to value the lives of those children as much as he clearly valued his own. >> reporter: prosecutor kristen gomes pointed out peterson stayed in a protected position for more than 45 minutes while the shooter was free to move and

continue his rampage. the defense argued gunfire echoed off buildings, and peterson couldn't tell where the gunshots were coming from. >> it's not just a victory for scot, it's a victory for every law enforcement officer in the country who does the best they can every single day. >> reporter: for some of the victims' families, they don't see this as a victory. >> i feel that my faith in the u.s. justice system is shaken. >> reporter: tony's daughter, gina, was killed that day. >> we don't understand how this jury looked at the evidence that was presented and found him not guilty. >> reporter: manuel oliver, whose son joaquin was killed in the shooting, said this is not a day to celebrate. >> joaquin cannot say today, oh, i'm going back to my life. he will never say that. you signed for that job. >> reporter: and the father of victim jamie took his frustration of the verdict to twitter. quote, while peterson and his

attorney celebrate him getting his life back, they must always remember that my daughter was murdered. and this morning scot peterson's legal troubles may not be over. some of the parkland families plan on going after him in civil court. now after the verdict, peterson said he was willing to meet with some of the families but none of the family members we talked to, none of the family members that were in court said they were interested in meeting scot peterson. phil and poppy? >> carlos suarez, thanks for the reporting. coming up ahead, we'll speak with scot peterson about his emotional reaction and his message to parkland family members about that verdict. "cnn this morning" continues right now. the ruling is seismic. now come the aftershocks. the supreme court has gutted affirmative action. >> it prevents our higher

education institution from using a tool that helps promote diversity on campus. >> this is not a normal court. >> today's decision marks a landmark win for the rights of asian americans in this country. >> being able to consider my race and my story is how i believe harvard was able to see me. the florida grand jury that indicted donald trump in the classified documents case is actually still investigating. >> one of donald trump's closest campaign advisers was shown a classified map by the former president. >> susie wiles. we know she was interviewed multiple times by the special counsel. a man was arrested in former president barack obama's washington neighborhood with multiple firearms and materials to make a molotov cocktail. >> the secret service in the area around the obamas' residence aobserved him acting suspiciously. >> taranto is on the radar from the january 6th case. the defendant is not guilty. >> peterson was charged with