WASHINGTON — The troubling plagiarism scandal of Sen. John Walsh (D-Montana) grew stranger today, after he told reporters that in addition to post-traumatic stress disorder being a possible cause for his plagiarizing one-third of his Army War College master’s thesis, it may have also led him to seek out a Russian mistress, embezzle money, and cheat during a game of Monopoly with his grandchildren.

Speaking to reporters, Walsh claimed PTSD forced him to cheat on his taxes in 2009 by hiding almost half of his financial assets in offshore accounts. The struggling senator also asserted that PTSD had caused him to seek out a Russian mistress, whom he ordered from an online catalog, and blamed his chronic halitosis and being unable to brush his teeth after supposedly discovering an IED hidden in his toothbrush at Camp Victory.

Sources confirmed that the trauma of Iraq had even made him forge his Starbucks frequent-customer punch card last week.

Since the news has come to light, Robert MacDonald, the new head of the Veterans Administration, has released a statement in defense of the embattled democratic senator.

“I call on all Americans to take this opportunity to reflect on the horrors of post-traumatic stress,” MacDonald began, praising Walsh’s heroism. “Millions of veterans are affected by this terrible affliction, with symptoms ranging from credit-card fraud all the way up to having sex with your biographer in a Kabul command conference room, or making disparaging remarks about the vice president to a biased, left-wing periodical.”

While many are still skeptical of the senator’s motives, claiming that PTSD is not a “get-out-of-jail free card” to be used as an excuse for any and all wrongdoing, veterans across the country stand in support of Sen. Walsh.

“I know how he feels. I had sex with my best friend’s wife,” said Army Sergeant Herman Miles, confessing that four grueling months in Iraq as a fuel clerk had forever changed him. “PTSD made me do it.”

“It even made me misfile a travel voucher in DTS,” he added.

Jamarcus Washington, a former Marine lance corporal, also stood behind the Senator.

“Of course I support him,” Washington told reporters. “I understand just how badly PTSD can affect your life. When I got back from Afghanistan I couldn’t bear to pay my child support. Just thinking about all the stuff I saw made it impossible to write the checks.”

At press time, Sen. Walsh was seen writing “PTSD” on the line for the tip after a $500 dinner at a high-class Washington D.C. restaurant.