They probably outsourced it to disconnect it from them, same as subcontractors doing things the state can't like operate drones on the border without massive outcry. Also it makes it less easy to pin on anyone at the agency/state and makes the individual(s) that put it in seem wacko if they stated that independently. You can just deny, deny, plausible deniability. It is easy to play the psychological reactions this way.
If the FBI, NSA, and others aren't doing stuff like this then I wonder how they are thinking they can hang with the Chinese, Russian, etc hackers of the state.
It's so funny, people believe in their own tribe/country that the authority would never do this but you think of it happening in China or Russia and you think, 'of course they are doing that!'. It is a problem of relativity/trust. Wikileaks put evidence of our very own State Department and Hilary Clinton bugging the United Nations but we aren't doing this across the internet/software landscape? hrm. Algorithms are hard to put trapdoors in, but the software that wraps them can help make it easier...