Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States was on Saturday confirmed by the Senate, ending months of biased quarrelling over the nominee's alleged history of sexual assault.
The final vote count was registered at 50-48 for Kavanaugh, coming as a major victory for President Donald Trump a month before the midterm elections, CNN reported. Trump will now be able to take credit for the appointment of two conservative Supreme Court Justices during his nearly two-year tenure.
Speaking ahead of the voting process, Trump heaped words of praise for his nominee, saying that he will be a "great justice of the Supreme Court."
"He's just an extraordinary person, and I think he's going to make us all very proud," Trump added.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) also acclaimed Kavanaugh, saying, "The President nominated a jurist who has been described by legal peers of all political stripes as a superstar. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is among the very best our nation has to offer."
Condemning the nomination, Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer (New York) said it was "one of the saddest moments in the history of the Senate," adding that "this chapter will be a flashing red warning light of what to avoid."
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Schumer said that the Republicans "conducted one of the least transparent, least fair, most biased processes in Senate history, slanting the table from the very beginning to produce their desired result."
Uncertainty over Kavanugh's nomination lingered until Friday morning as the Republicans still did not have the numbers to confirm the Judge's nomination to the apex court. Those concerns, however, were swept aside when Republican Senators Jeff Flake (Arizona) and Susan Collins (Maine) and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (West Virginia) confirmed their support for Kavanaugh.
During her Senate floor speech, Collins said that although she did not believe that Professor Christine Blasey Ford's allegations were corroborated, she did not believe that "these charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the court."
Senator Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) was the only Republican Senator to not support Kavanaugh's nomination. The Alaska Senator stated while she believed that Kavanaugh is a "good man," she thought the confirmation process was now about something "bigger than a nominee."
Meanwhile, the only Democratic Senator to support the nomination was Joe Manchin from West Virginia, reported The Hill. The Republicans used his support to brand the nomination as "bipartisan."
The close vote count in the nomination was the closest one since Stanley Matthews was confirmed in 1881 (24-23).
The nomination process has also been marked with intense protesting and opposition from both the Democratic Party and the general public almost ever since Trump had announced Kavanaugh as his nominee on July 9.
Hordes of protestors had gathered outside the Capitol Hill on Saturday, with chants of "vote them out" and "the whole world is watching" reverberating among the masses. Hundreds of protestors have been arrested from across the country so far as they engulfed Senate office buildings to protest Republican Senators this past week.
Ford had alleged Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in 1982, when the two were in high school, while another accuser - Deborah Ramirez - had stated that he exposed himself to her while in their freshman year at Yale University. Kavanaugh has maintained his stance of denying all wrongdoings ever since the allegations came to the fore.