David Kravets at Wired Threat Level blog reports that Hal Turner, a notorious shitbag "hate blogger" in New Jersey who was charged two months ago with threatening to kill judges and lawmakers, was secretly an FBI "agent provocateur" paid tens of thousands of dollars by our government to broadcast white supremacist rhetoric. Snip:

Hal Turner, the blogger and radio personality, remains jailed pending charges over his recent online rants, which prosecutors claim amounted to an invitation for someone to kill Connecticut lawmakers and Chicago federal appeals court judges.

But behind the scenes the reformed white supremacist was holding clandestine meetings with FBI agents who taught him how to spew hate "without crossing the line," according to his lawyer, Michael Orozco.

"Almost everything was at the behest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Orozco said in a 45-minute telephone interview from New Jersey. "Their job was to pick up information on the responses of what he was saying and see where that led them. It was an interesting dynamic on what he was being asked to do."