Former police chief in pro-gun video exposed as government shill who entrapped constitutionalists

(NaturalNews) Here is a lesson about why you should never completely trust anyone you "meet" online, no matter whom they appear to be.

A former small-town Pennsylvania police chief who posted a number of videos online of himself spewing obscenities about liberal ideologues and their views on the Second Amendment, all while shooting automatic weapons, secretly gave information about people he thought were members of a so-called militia, who he believed were anti-government extremists and people who called themselves "sovereign citizens" to state police and the FBI.

According to documents obtained by The Associated Press, the extent of the relationship that former Gilberton Police Chief Mark Kessler actually had with state and federal law enforcement officers, whether they had initiated contact and asked for information, what they did with information received and how they actually viewed him were all not clear.

J.J. Klaver, an FBI spokesman, told the AP that the agency traditionally does not offer comment about people who claim to be informants. In addition, state police officials declined to comment.

The AP further reported:

The ex-lawman attracted attention last year after posting incendiary videos of himself spraying machine-gun fire and cursing liberals and others. The videos got hundreds of thousands of views online.

Kessler said that individuals advocating insurrection and violence contacted him as a result of the videos, and he saw them as a threat and had a responsibility to report them to federal and state authorities.

I had a duty to report extremists

Kessler is now going public because, he says, he wants to restore his reputation. He retired from his position with the police department last February following a settlement with borough officials who were set to fire him following emergence of his videos.

The AP and TheBlaze noted that the former chief of police had private Facebook chats that he shared with state and federal law enforcement via email, according to documents. Kessler redacted agents' and officers' names from the documents.

One person advocates shooting the president in one message, while another person discusses targeting mosques in a separate message.

"Any normal person who was contacted by these twisted individuals has a duty to report what they were planning," Kessler said.

Joseph Nahas, an attorney for Kessler, said his client decided to contact law enforcement after being contacted by some radical groups.

Nahas said that extremists "looked at Mark to be some sort of leader and further their cause of governmental destruction." He added that Kessler collected intelligence about "who they were, what their plans were, what their targets were." The attorney also said that a state trooper had told him several weeks ago that he had been getting information from Kessler.

The former police chief said his first contact with people he considered to be too extreme occurred almost two years ago, when he pressed city council members in Gilberton to pass a resolution nullifying some gun laws.

"I was acting to attract these sickos and it worked"

"Kessler says he met with an FBI agent and a state trooper and continued to pass on information, but received contact from fewer people as months wore on. That's when he said he ramped up his rhetoric by posting incendiary videos in the summer of 2013," the AP reported.

At that time, the former police chief said his videos were aimed at drawing attention to what he considered to be an out-of-control federal government that was working to usurp the Second Amendment and additional constitutional rights. But now he says it was an act aimed at luring potential domestic terrorists so he could out them to law enforcement.

He went on to say that no law enforcement organization asked him to post the videos. Indeed, he says, law enforcement was upset with him when he first did so, he says.

"I wasn't portraying me. I was basically acting to attract these sickos and it worked," said Kessler.

"I thought I was doing good for myself, my country, my fellow Americans, by trapping these radicals and extremists and bringing them to the appropriate authorities, but in the meantime I decimated my career," he continued, according to AP. "Was it worth it? If I saved one person's life, absolutely it was worth it."

You can see one of his videos here (WARNING: STRONG language).

Sources:

http://www.theblaze.com

https://www.youtube.com

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com