Sen. John Walsh of Montana plagiarized much of his master's thesis: report

Matt Volz/AP

Sen. John Walsh, a Montana Democrat, appears to have plagiarized much of his master's thesis, a report Wednesday said.

Walsh, 53, was appointed to his seat last year after a career in the National Guard that included a decorated stint in Iraq. He faces a tough election fight against Republican Rep. Steve Daines in one of the races that will determine if Republicans can win control of the Senate this fall.

The New York Times reported that a 14-page research paper Walsh wrote while studying at U.S. Army War College contains unattributed passages taken word-for-word from previously published papers.

Walsh's campaign said the senator did not mean to plagiarize.

'This was unintentional and it was a mistake,' spokeswoman Lauren Passalacqua said in a statement. 'Senator Walsh released every single evaluation that he received during his 33-year military career, which shows an honorable and stellar record of service to protecting Montana and serving this country in Iraq.'

Janie Osborne/AP

Walsh's paper arguing for U.S. policy that promotes democracy in the Middle East borrows extensively and almost word-for word from a Carnegie Endowment Paper on the same topic.

One section of the paper borrows heavily from a 1998 paper by Sean Lynn-Jones, a scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a research institute at Harvard.

'All I can say is, although it is a little bit flattering to have your work noticed, especially by someone who is now a senator, I am surprised that the plagiarism was so blatant,' said Sean Lynn-Jones,.

'I am surprised he did it, and I am surprised he wasn't caught.'

dfriedman@nydailynews.com