A graduate of the best schools, a regular churchgoer, coach of his daughters' basketball teams, a former White House lawyer and an appeals court judge.
Brett Kavanaugh, , brings impressive credentials to the nation's high court.
But his Senate confirmation hearing raised doubts about Mr Kavanaugh's choirboy image and he will join the eight other justices with a cloud hanging over his head.
At a hearing marked by bitter partisan acrimony, Mr Kavanaugh was forced to defend himself against an allegation of sexual assault dating back to when he was a teenager.
Since then, a different portrait of Mr Kavanaugh emerged - that of someone who often drank to excess during his high school and college years and behaved obnoxiously.
During the past two weeks, dozens of people who have known him came forward to support one version of Mr Kavanaugh or the other.
In the end, 49 Republicans and one Democrat voted to endorse a nominee that President Donald Trump praised as a "fine man and great intellect."
The Supreme Court pick with his wife Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, after President Donald Trump announced his nomination. Source: AP
At just 53 years old, Mr Kavanaugh could conceivably serve on the court - currently evenly divided between liberals and conservatives - for decades, tilting it to the right.
Mr Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation was proceeding smoothly until multiple sexual assault allegations surfaced against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement.
'I like beer'
a 51-year-old psychology professor, said Mr Kavanaugh attacked her at a party 36 years ago in a suburban Maryland home when he was 17 and she was 15.
She said he pinned her down, held his hand over her mouth and attempted to remove her clothes before she managed to escape.
Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, alleged that Mr Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking game when they attended Yale University.
Christine Blasey Ford testifies at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. Source: AAP
At the request of Democrats and a Republican senator the FBI was called in to look into the allegations -- but was unable to corroborate their stories.
Democrats slammed that investigation as "incomplete."
Mr Kavanaugh, for his part, in a fiery appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, vehemently denied the charges saying they were "last-minute smears, pure and simple."
"I liked beer, I still like beer," he said. "But I did not drink beer to the point of blacking out and I never sexually assaulted anyone."
Born on February 12, 1965, Mr Kavanaugh grew up in a wealthy suburb of Washington DC and attended the elite Georgetown Prep boys' school.
He graduated with a law degree from Yale and clerked for Anthony Kennedy, the justice long considered a critical swing vote on the Supreme Court.
In the 1990s, Mr Kavanaugh led an investigation into the suicide of Bill Clinton aide Vince Foster, who was linked to the Whitewater controversy that began as a probe into the presidential couple's real estate investments.
President Donald J. Trump (R) announces Federal appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy Source: AP
'Pro-law judge'
Mr Kavanaugh later contributed to prosecutor Kenneth Starr's report into Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, which outlined grounds for impeachment.
He went on to join Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush's legal team working on the 2000 Florida recount, which resulted in Bush winning the White House.
After Bush became president, he recruited Mr Kavanaugh to become his legal counsel before naming him in 2003 to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seen as the second most important court after the Supreme Court.
But Mr Kavanaugh's nomination languished for three years as Democrats fumed over his participation in Bush's recount team. He was eventually confirmed in 2006.
After Justice Kennedy announced his retirement this year, President Trump nominated Mr Kavanaugh to replace his one-time mentor on the Supreme Court.
His appointment raised concerns that Mr Kavanaugh, a devout Catholic and conservative jurist, could swing the court to the right on sensitive issues such as abortion.
Mr Kavanaugh, in an opinion piece published this week in The Wall Street Journal, said he views his role as a judge as that of "an umpire - a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no political party, litigant or policy."
The US Senate has confirmed Brett Kavanaugh as the new Supreme Court justice. Source: AP
"I am not a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant judge," he said, in a highly unusual plea to defend his impartiality.
"I am not a pro-prosecution or pro-defense judge. I am a pro-law judge."
Mr Kavanaugh was married in 2004 to Ashley Estes, who he met at the White House while she was working as President Bush's personal secretary. They have two daughters.
