Why would they need to do this for a honeypot? Visiting a torrent website is not illegal. You /can/ download Linux ISOs from them.
The government could just upload a torrent and watch the connected IP list. Actually, they don't even need to upload a torrent. Just get a torrent and see who you connect to. Anyone you connect to is uploading that content.
Operating a site gives more than just IPs. 1) To add a torrent to a torrent site, a user has to set up an account - they get access to account information and 2) even if the site is serving things via https, they control it, and can send a malicious ad or inject some JS in the page to a targeted user.
The government could just upload a torrent and watch the connected IP list. Actually, they don't even need to upload a torrent. Just get a torrent and see who you connect to. Anyone you connect to is uploading that content.