Good morning. I'm James Holman from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

2002 for Thursday, September 20th. In today's news, the FEMA administrator almost resigned, but he decided not to.

The death toll after Florence has revived a debate over how hurricanes are measured.

And Jim Comi thinks Bob Mueller might be

in the fourth quarter of his investigation.

But first, the big idea. Senate Republicans strongly signaled on Wednesday

that they will forge ahead with a vote for embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett

Kavanaugh even as his accuser called the rush for a public hearing next

Monday and their refusal to allow the FBI to investigate deeply unfair.

GOP senators who fretted earlier this week about the prospects for President Trump's pick are now largely pushing for a vote on Kavina, who is accused of sexually assaulting Professor Christine Blaisey Ford when they were teenagers.

She has said that she doesn't want to testify before the Judiciary Committee

until the FBI conducts an investigation into the alleged incident.

Senate Democrats have lined up behind her, but Republicans are not

budging from their view that the FBI does not need to intervene. There is precedent for the

FBI stepping in late in the process of a Supreme Court nomination.

In 1991, when law professor Anita Hill alleged that now Justice Clarence Thomas had sexually

harassed her, the FBI was called in to investigate by George H.W. Bush's White House, and the

FBI would investigate if the Trump White House instructed them to.

Ford's attorneys have not officially declined the committee's invitation, but they reiterated Wednesday that while Ford is willing to cooperate, there needs to be a full and non-partisan investigation first.

Her lawyers also say that having just two witnesses,

Kavanaugh and Ford, is neither fair nor in good faith when there are multiple witnesses

who should testify. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa,

...