At the opening of the session, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. read a statement about the death on Sunday of Martin D. Ginsburg, the husband of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
At the end of the session, Chief Justice Rehnquist announced that the court would conclude its term and announce all remaining decisions on Tuesday.
An F.B.I. surveillance photograph from that era showed Mr. Della Cava, who had driven Mr. Salerno to a meeting of the mob's ruling commission, picking up the mob chief after the session.
Addressing a crowd of lawyers and touristsas he began the session, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist called for a moment of silence to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.
Stephen O'Brien, the former Conservative MP who earlier this year was appointed as the UN's humanitarian chief, told a session of the Security Council that "the scope and level of cruelty that has characterised the attacks against civilians suggests a depth of antipathy that goes beyond political differences".
After the Nov. 6 midterm election, the president forced out Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and installed Sessions' chief of staff, Matt Whitaker, as his temporary replacement.
In one July 2017 appearance on CNN, which took place before he was appointed Sessions' chief of staff, Whitaker expressed skepticism about the integrity and validity of the Russia investigation.
Sessions' duties will be temporarily assumed not by Rosenstein, who would seem the obvious choice, but by Matthew G. Whitaker, who has been serving as Sessions' chief of staff.
The deputy chief counsel for Sessions, Rachael Tucker, who had placed a hold on the 2014 bill, said the Republican lawmaker was concerned that reforms to Exemption 5 would harm attorney-client privilege if documents potentially including that info could no longer be withheld after 25 years.
Sessions' chief of staff, Matthew G. Whitaker, will immediately take over the role, thanks to a 1998 law that allows Trump to fill high-level vacancies on an acting basis with any Senate-confirmed official, a pool of potential candidates also rumored to include Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Solicitor General Noel Francisco.
