Donald Trump's controversial nominee Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as a judge of the US Supreme Court, in a major victory for the US President ahead of key mid-term elections in November amid crackling tension, angry protests and high drama on Capitol Hill.
Kavanaugh was officially sworn in Saturday evening as the 114th Justice of the Supreme Court by Chief Justice John Roberts who administered the Constitutional Oath in the Justices' Conference Room, hours after the 53-year-old judge was confirmed by a bitterly divided Senate by 50-48 votes -- the closest nomination vote since 1881.
Retired Associate Justice Anthony M Kennedy administered the judicial oath. Wife Ashley Kavanaugh held the family Bible. Justice Kavanaugh's two daughters, Liza and Margaret, and his parents attended the ceremony.
His appointment is for life and he will strengthen conservative control of the nine-judge court, which has the final say on US law.
President Trump, who was on a November 6 mid-term election campaign trail in Kansas, called Kavanaugh to congratulate him on his confirmation and swearing in.
"I just congratulated him," he said.
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"I said congratulations. It was well fought. I mean, who would have thought a thing like that could have happened, what he's been through? Everything was uncorroborated," he told reporters in Topeka, Kansas.
Kavanaugh, whose nomination was hit by multiple accusations of sexual misconduct against him from his past, replaces Kennedy who had announced his resignation early this year.
He has vehemently denied all allegations of sexual misconduct against him when he was in high school and college.
The swearing in of Kavanaugh as the Supreme Court judge comes after weeks of bitterly fought battle between the ruling Republican and the opposition Democratic parties.
Republicans had accused Democrats of seeking to delay the confirmation of Kavanaugh in the hope that they will make gains in the mid-term elections in November and stop his appointment altogether.
Things took an ugly turn in the last few weeks, when three women came forward with allegations that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted them.
Millions of people inside US and abroad watched live on their television sets the open hearing of Kavanaugh and his first accuser Christine Ford, a professor in California.
Under tremendous political pressure, Trump ordered a last-minute FBI supplemental inquiry.
The FBI submitted the confidential report to the Senate committee Thursday and soon Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the new FBI investigation into Kavanaugh found nothing to corroborate sexual assault allegations against him.
"This investigation found no hint of misconduct," Senator Grassley said in a statement. "There's nothing in it that we didn't already know."
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