Today in one sentence: The Trump administration will rescind Obama-era guidelines that encourage college admissions to consider race as a factor in order to diversify their student bodies; Leaked copies of Michael Cohen's shredded documents were reconstructed by the FBI and appear to confirm Cohen's $62,500 payment to a former Playboy model; Scott Pruitt and his aides kept "secret" calendars to hide controversial meetings with industry representatives; and ICE agents are forcing parents to choose between leaving the country with their children — or leaving the country without them.

1/ The Trump administration will rescind Obama-era guidelines that encourage college admissions to consider race as a factor in order to diversify their student bodies. Trump administration officials contend the current policies “mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than the law allows.” The reversal would restore George W. Bush’s policy that “strongly encourages the use of race-neutral methods” for student admissions. Jeff Sessions said Justice Department prosecutors will investigate and sue universities over discriminatory admissions policies. Schools that don’t follow the new policy could also lose federal funding. (Wall Street Journal / New York Times / Reuters)

2/ Leaked copies of Michael Cohen’s shredded documents were reconstructed by the FBI and appear to confirm Cohen’s $62,500 payment to a former Playboy model on behalf of Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy. The documents were seized during a raid by the FBI on Cohen’s home and office in April and include handwritten notes about a taxi business, as well as insurance papers, correspondence from a woman described as a “vexatious litigant,” who claims she is under government surveillance, and other documents that prosecutors already had in their possession. (BuzzFeed News)

  • READ: Michael Cohen’s Reconstructed Shredded Documents. (DocumentCloud)

3/ Scott Pruitt and his aides kept “secret” calendars and schedules to hide controversial meetings and calls with industry representatives. Staffers routinely met in Pruitt’s office to “scrub” records from Pruitt’s calendar because they might “look bad.” “We would have meetings [about] what we were going to take off on the official schedule,” said Pruitt’s former deputy chief of staff Kevin Chmielewski. “We had at one point three different schedules. One of them was one that no one else saw except three or four of us. It was a secret … and they would decide what to nix from the public calendar.” (CNN)

4/ Two of Pruitt’s top aides told congressional investigators that he leveraged his position for personal benefit and ignored warnings about potential ethical issues. The staffers testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, sharing details about Pruitt’s spending and management decisions, his efforts to secure a six-figure job for his wife at a conservative political group, enlisting aides to perform personal tasks, and seeking high-end travel despite objections and warnings from staffers. (Washington Post)

5/ Scott Pruitt asked Trump this spring to fire Jeff Sessions and let him run the Department of Justice. Advisers shot down Pruitt’s proposal to temporarily replace Sessions for 210 days under the Vacancies Reform Act, saying he would return to Oklahoma afterward to run for office. (CNN)

6/ ICE agents are forcing parents to choose between leaving the country with their children — or leaving the country without them. The new instructions from the Trump administration to agents don’t allow parents separated under the “zero tolerance” policy to reunite with their children while they await a decision on asylum – effectively preventing them from making an asylum claim. (NBC News)

7/ A federal judge ordered the U.S. government to stop the blanket arrests of asylum seekers and immediately release or grant hearings to more than 1,000 asylum seekers who have been jailed without individualized case reviews. (Washington Post)

  • The White House used its official Twitter account to attack two Democratic senators who oppose Trump’s immigration agenda, equating their criticisms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement with support for criminals. (New York Times)

8/ Trump threatened several NATO allies in June that they increase defense spending and meet their security obligation or face consequences. Trump hinted that one consequence could be an adjustment to the United States’ military presence around the world. In his letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump warned that it would “become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries do not share NATO’s collective security burden while American soldiers continue to sacrifice their lives overseas or come home gravely wounded.” (New York Times)

  • NATO allies defend military spending amid Trump criticism. NATO officials are concerned that trans-Atlantic divisions over trade tariffs and the U.S. pullout from the Paris global climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal could undermine alliance unity. (Washington Post)

9/ Trump ordered American flags to be lowered to half-staff to honor the victims of last week’s shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom, after initially denying the request last week. Annapolis mayor, Gavin Buckley, submitted the flag request through Maryland representatives in Congress and was told Monday that it had been denied. (New York Times)

poll/ 49% of voters say Trump is racist while 47% say he is not racist. 44% say the main motive for Trump’s immigration policies are “racist beliefs.” (Quinnipiac)

poll/ 58% of Americans disapprove of the way Trump has handled immigration, frequently describing the practice of separating children from their parents as “sad,” “terrible,” “bad,” and “wrong.” (Quinnipiac)

poll/ 64% of voters want Trump’s Supreme Court nominee to “limit the amount of money corporations and unions can spend on political campaigns.” The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision allowed businesses to spend unlimited money on political campaigns. (Daily Beast / Ipsos)

poll/ 62% of Americans say they want the Republican-led Senate to vote on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee before the November midterm elections. 33% said the Senate should wait until after the elections. 66% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans said Trump’s nominee would be an important factor in their vote in the midterms. (NBC News)

Notables.

  1. Rep. Jim Jordan was accused of failing to stop sexual abuse by the team doctor when he was the Ohio State wrestling coach. Republican congressman from Ohio was the assistant wrestling coach at the university from 1986 to 1994 and has repeatedly said he didn’t know about the abuse until former students began speaking out this spring. (NBC News)

  2. Wilbur Ross shorted two more stocks – five in total – during his time as Commerce secretary. Ross maintains that made the trades to avoid the impression that his financial holdings were a conflict of interest. (CNBC)

  3. Trump, again, criticized Harley-Davidson for moving some operations overseas in response to retaliatory EU tariffs against U.S. goods. Trump tweeted that he’s talking with other motorcycle companies about moving them to the U.S. (CNBC)

  4. The top aide to Rod Rosenstein will leave the Justice Department for a job in the private sector. The DOJ’s previous third-in-command, Rachel Brand, resigned earlier this year. TALK: Who else has left the Trump administration. (NPR)

  5. A federal judge set a pre-sentencing hearing for Michael Flynn. Trump’s former national security adviser will head to court next Tuesday. Flynn pleaded guilty last December to one felony count of making false statements to the FBI. (Politico)

  6. The Senate Intelligence Committee backed the intelligence community’s assessment that Putin was trying to help Trump when Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, breaking with their House Republican counterparts. (Politico / CNN)

  7. Trump plans to meet one-on-one with Putin during their July 16 summit in Helsinki, Finland. Some US officials expressed concern that without aides present, the meeting will be without an official record — making it difficult to determine whether they reached any agreements. (CNN)