[Swidemaiskikemu]

I'm going to go with the "bunch of idiots at the FBI" theory.

They were trying to train agents and police officers on how to deal with "activist" groups. They needed some "authenticity," so one of the morons in charge thought "hey, why don't I call Fred Phelps? He's always up for this kind of shit, and his group is essentially harmless for all the noise they make." You know Fred Phelps is going to jump at the chance. Now he can try to play on the credibility of the FBI. He and the people he took with him to the training were probably very nice and worked with the agents. I doubt anything of value was learned, as these kind of "training" events are usually as useless as a cock-flavored lollipop. Nobody even thought anything about it, then the news got out. Uh-oh...

This happened because some idiot tax-leech didn't realize it was a stupid idea. These are the kinds of people attracted to government work, even in law enforcement.