[FormerACLUmember]

What possessed Ward to think he could make the kinds of inflamatory statements that he did and people wouldn't uncover his fraud?

Psychosis, in this case Paranoid Schizophrenia.

He will eventually kill himself, shooting himself with one of those firearms he bandies about in threatening poses. His suicide will come as the inevitable consequences of his hateful behavior and his complete life of fraud close in. He will leave a suicide note maintaining his lifelong delusion of professional victimhood, and blaming his "persecutors."

[DannyTN]

Suicide note will also blame the white man and his firewater.