Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee Sen. Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.) appeared to blame the VA scandal on the Koch brothers last Friday at a North Hampton, MA forum with The Nation's John Nichols.

The Department of Veterans affairs has fallen under increased scrutiny over revelations administrators in Phoenix and elsewhere created off the books waiting lists for veterans seeking care. Several veterans died while waiting on the secret lists.

Sanders forcefully defended the VA and other federal agencies at the forum, stating the VA provides "very high quality healthcare" and programs such as Medicare and Social Security are "enormously popular."

However, Sanders's critique of the VA scandal then took a bizarre turn.

"Right now, as we speak, a concerted effort to undermine the VA," he said. "What are the problems? The problems are, is, that all of these are large, governmental institutions and you have folks out there now, Koch Brothers and others, who want to radically change the nature of society, and either make major cuts in all of these institutions, or maybe do away with them entirely."

So, in Sen. Sanders's mind the negative media coverage around the VA scandal is really just a Koch conspiracy to undermine the agency so the department can eventually be gutted.

Ridiculous as it may seem, the socialist senator's nebulous smear connecting the billionaire philanthropists to the fallout from the VA scandal is hardly at odds with his party's relentless Koch obsession:

Full remarks:

BERNIE SANDERS: Right now, we’re dealing with the Veterans Administration. I’m Chairman of the Veterans Committee. Let me tell you some news. The Veterans Administration provides very high quality health care. Period. It’s not perfect. It is good quality health care, according to the veterans themselves, and according to a number of independent surveys that have looked at it. It’s not perfect. It runs 151 centers. Today 200,000 veterans get health care through the VA. There is right now, as we speak, a concerted effort to undermine the VA. So the point is, you have government entity itself, Social Security, enormously popular, Medicare, enormously popular, Postal Service, popular, VA popular. What are the problems? The problems are, is, that all of these are large, governmental institutions and you have folks out there now, Koch Brothers and others, who want to radically change the nature of society, and either make major cuts in all of these institutions, or maybe do away with them entirely.