Trump apologises to Kavanaugh for 'pain' caused during confirmation process

United States President Donald Trump on Monday apologised to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the ordeal that Kavanaugh and his family had to go through during the confirmation process, at the ceremonial swearing-in event in the White House.

Referring to the allegations of sexual harassment by Christine Blasey Ford which led to the hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Trump apologised for the "terrible pain and suffering" that Kavanaugh and his family were subjected to.

CNN quoted Trump as saying, "Those who step forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation, not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception. What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency and due process."

Trump further asserted that a man or a woman in this country "must always be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty".

"You, sir, under historic scrutiny, were proven innocent," Trump reiterated.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh was on Saturday was sworn-in as an associate justice in the Supreme Court of the United States, shortly after the Senate confirmed his nomination.

The Supreme Court had earlier confirmed that Kavanaugh would be sworn-in on the same day as the final vote on his nomination.

The final vote count was registered at 50-48 for Kavanaugh, coming as a major victory for President Donald Trump a month before the mid-term elections.

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.