Good morning. I'm James Holman from the Washington Post and this is the Daily 202 for Friday, September 21st.

In today's news, President Trump authorizes the use of cyber weapons ahead of the midterms.

Ben Carson has hired several people with no housing experience to run the Housing Department,

and congressional Republicans are

increasingly making clear to Trump he'll never get the money for his

border wall. But first the big idea. An attorney for Christine Blasy Ford, the woman who was accused

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, said

that her appearing at a hearing next Monday to detail her claims is not possible

but that she could testify later in the week. The offer on the table is for

Thursday. Negotiations are ongoing. The Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican, said late Thursday that he's consulting with his colleagues on how best to proceed.

Kavanaugh wrote to Grassley in a letter released by the White House that he looks for proceed. his allies have been privately discussing a possible defense that

wouldn't question whether an incident involving Ford happened but would try to

raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh. Earlier this week Kavanaugh told

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, one of his most fervent

supporters, that Ford has the wrong perpetrator in mind because he didn't go to parties like the

one she described.

Ed Wielen, a close friend of Kavanaugh, who has helped him prepare for the confirmation hearings, and who worked with him in the Bush White House,

posted a series of incendiary tweets late Thursday night that publicly identified another high school classmate of

Kavanaugh's as Ford's possible real attacker. But Ford flatly dismissed Whelan's theory

in a statement to the post. She says she knew both men and socialized with the other

classmate. Ford said she even once visited him in the hospital and said quote

there is zero chance that I would confuse them. In light of this backlash, Republicans on Capitol Hill

...