Happy Monday! This is the time on Sprockets when we dance. My eyes are mostly better. I didn't go on the computer all weekend, except briefly after Biden "dropped out," as they're claiming.

First of all: Even though the Secret Service had been alerted to a suspicious person, with a rifle, on the roof of a custom-built sniper's platform, they never bothered telling Trump about it.

Donald Trump revealed Saturday that he was not warned by the Secret Service about the gunman who shot him at a Pennsylvania rally last weekend -- despite agents eyeing the suspect for hours before the attack.

"Nobody mentioned it," Trump, 78, told Jesse Watters in an upcoming episode of the Fox News anchor's primetime show.

"Nobody said it was a problem," the Republican presidential nominee said.

"[They] could've said, 'Let's wait for 15, 20 minutes, 5 minutes.' Nobody said...I think that was a mistake," he added.

Trump questioned how gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to climb onto a roof with a rifle in hand just 130 yards away from the politician without the Secret Service taking action.

Police even saw Crooks on the building 26 minutes before he opened fire -- and were alerted by frantically screaming witnesses -- but didn't take action.

The Secret Service didn't make any moves until after Crooks squeezed off up to seven shots at Trump, grazing the candidate in the ear and killing one audience member.

I don't believe the theory that they planned it all, but it's a fair question to ask: If they were to indeed plan out an assassination, what, exactly, would they do differently than they actually did?

Secret Service officials repeatedly rejected Donald Trump's request for additional security in the two years before last weekend's assassination attempt, The Post has learned.

The ex-president, 78, asked for more agents and magnetometers at large public events he attended, as well as extra snipers for outdoor venues, four insiders told The Washington Post, which first reported the damning revelation.

Each request was shot down by senior officials who claimed the agency lacked the resources Trump was asking for, the outlet reported.

...

Outrage at the security lapse led the federal security agency to up Trump's detail to the same level as President Biden, The Post exclusively reported earlier this week.

The Secret Service initially denied claims that someone from Trump's camp asked for more help ahead of the deadly shooting as "absolutely false."

The left's fixation on deplatforming was behind this -- Trump doesn't deserve to speak so why should we "platform" him by giving him enough Secret Service protection to allow him to speak safely?

Obviously, there needs to be a purge. I'm a broken record on that.

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, admitted to The Washington Post that the agency had denied Trump's request for additional security, but claimed it had only learned about the new information in the wake of the tragedy.

Guglielmi told The Post that there were "some instances where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided," but that the agency instead utilized state or local partners to add protections.

And they went down to the local SoulCycle to recruit additional "resources."

Kim Cheatle is currently testilying before Congress. She's denying she endorsed the "30 by 30" DEI plan, the insane scheme to fill the agents' ranks with 30% women by 2030.

Susan Crabtree
@susancrabtree

A GOP member asks Cheatle about her well-reported DEI hiring policies -- that she has signed onto a "30x30" pledge to make the agency 30 percent by 2030.

Cheatle is flat-out LYING about her DEI hiring policies. Unbelievable -- she is not acknowledging that she signed onto it.

FACT: Months ago, her own spokesman Guglielmi confirmed to me that she signed onto the 30x30 pledge, and she has stated that diversifying the Secret Service is one of her top priorities.

GOP member: "You spent some time trying to change the makeup of the Secret Service -- does this affect at overall [quality] of who you were hiring at the USSS

Cheatle completely dodges.

"I spent my time as director tyring to increase the number of people we hire on the Secret Service so that we have the best and brightest...and that's my job as director of the USSS."

"I'm hiring the best-qualified candidates that put in an application that want to work for our great organization." ...

I'll link my RealClearPolitics story quoting Guglielmi on this as soon as I can.

She refuses to say how many spent shell casings were found on the roof of the assassin's perch -- because that would reveal how many bullets the Secret Service allowed this killer to fire before bothering to fire back.

Benjamin Weingarten
@bhweingarten

Director Cheatle won't say how many spent shell casings were on AGR roof