President-elect Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday. (Evan Vucci/AP)
The choice of Kavanaugh is no surprise: incoming second lady Usha Vance clerked for Kavanaugh when he was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.
She then went on to a prestigious law clerkship at the Supreme Court with Roberts. Sources say Kavanaugh gave an especially strong job recommendation for Usha Vance to his now bench colleague.
In an August interview with "Fox and Friends," Usha Vance said Kavanaugh was "such a good boss" and "decent person" who "hired people from all over the political spectrum."
"My experience working for him was overwhelmingly positive," she added.
Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas are among recent justices who have performed similar vice-presidential swear-in honors.
While chief justices have normally sworn in the president, a broader mix of officials have handled the vice-presidential duties. Then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert swore in Vice President Dick Cheney in 2005.
Thomas did the honors when Mike Pence was sworn in 2017 as vice president for Trump's first term.
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Article VI of the Constitution requires executive officers, including the president, as well as members of Congress and federal judges, to "be bound by oath or affirmation," but nothing mandates that a Supreme Court justice administer it. When it comes to the presidential inauguration, they just have, most of the time.
There was no Supreme Court yet formed when George Washington took the first oath of office in 1789, so New York's highest ranking judge did the honors at Federal Hall on Wall Street. Four years later, Associate Justice William Cushing swore in Washington for a second term, beginning the Supreme Court tradition.
Early swear-ins were usually conducted in the House or Senate chamber. The 1817 inaugural was held outdoors for the first time when James Monroe took the oath in front of the Old Brick Capitol, where the legislature met temporarily after the original Capitol was burned by invading British troops in the War of 1812. The Monroe swear-in site is now occupied by the Supreme Court, which opened its building in 1935.
The man who handled the duties more than 200 years ago was John Marshall, widely acknowledged as the most influential chief justice in U.S. history. He participated in a record nine swear-ins, from Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson. For Roberts, this will be his fifth.
The Constitution lays out the exact language to be used in the 34-word oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Many judges have tacked on four little words, "so help me God." It is not legally or constitutionally required, unlike other federal oaths that invoke the words as standard procedure. Historians have been at odds over whether President Washington established precedent by adding the phrase on his own during his first acceptance, but contemporary accounts mention no such ad-libbing.
Abraham Lincoln was reported to have said it spontaneously in 1861, and other presidents over the years have followed suit. A Bible is traditionally used, with the president placing one hand on it while raising the other during the oath of office.
The 16th president and Chief Justice Roger Taney shared a mutual animosity. When the oath was administered just days before the Civil War erupted, many attending the ceremony noticed the frosty demeanor both men showed each other, befitting the late winter chill. Several historians have said Lincoln later that year secretly issued an arrest warrant for Taney, who tried to block the president's suspension of habeas corpus during the conflict. The warrant was never served.
President Barack Obama used Lincoln's Bible for his two swear-ins.
Trump is expected to again use the Lincoln Bible and a family Bible.
Donald Trump takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts on Jan. 20, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
They have been around in British courts since the 16th century, and at least a century in the United States. Only judges wear them, and only at formal ceremonies, not in court.
Official records are hazy on the hats, but Chief Justice Edward White proudly wore one in 1913 when Woodrow Wilson became president. The "age of the skullcap" peaked in 1961 when seven of the nine justices wore them at the bitterly cold inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.
The last time around, only now-retired Justice Stephen Breyer was brave enough to sport one, though Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and the late Antonin Scalia had worn them previously. None of the six current or former women justices ever used them.
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Scalia told an audience a few years ago why he favored skullcaps. "If you've ever seen an inauguration, you will see me wearing the old hats judges used to wear. It's a ridiculous-looking hat, but it's a tradition. Yes, it's silly looking."
Scalia's headgear was a replica of one worn by St. Thomas More, a gift from the St. Thomas More Society of Richmond, Virginia
The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist also sported them, not surprising, given his role as an unofficial historian of court procedure and tradition.
He made one of the most dramatic appearances in inaugural history while suffering from thyroid cancer in 2005. There was speculation he would be too ill to attend, but he assured officials he would be there, and he kept his word.
After three months away from the public eye while he received chemotherapy, the ailing 81-year-old chief was introduced to the audience just before President George W. Bush was to take the oath. Using a cane, Rehnquist walked slowly to the podium without assistance – wearing a dark baseball cap – and did the honors. His voice was clear but raspy, because of a trachea tube in his throat, which was hidden by a scarf.
Afterward, Rehnquist wished Bush good luck, then was quickly escorted out of the cold.
Rehnquist also swore in President Bill Clinton eight years earlier. Unbeknownst to Clinton or the public, the justices days earlier had taken a private vote in Clinton v. Jones. Their ruling said the president could not refuse to testify in an ongoing civil lawsuit against him by Paula Jones, who alleged sexual harassment. That triggered a series of events leading to Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate, presided over by Rehnquist himself, without the skullcap.
Shannon Bream currently serves as anchor of FOX News Sunday. She joined the network in 2007 as a Washington D.C- based correspondent covering the Supreme Court.
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