I have a surplus against my diary quota, so I'm gonna pull a comment I buried in the front page story,
"Mr. DeLay's 'Meal is to be comped'" out for a diary of its own. It's something I think we should pay a little extra attention to.
Signatures, I predict, will become a major hub in the Abramoff investigation, and it will be the link to ethics violations by literally dozens of House Republicans.
It was more than just a fancy restaurant where Abramoff wined and dined powerful Members of Congress free of charge, it was part of a vertically integrated front operation for political money laundering.
Abramoff's operation, including Signatures restaurant, its sister outlet -- Stackers Deli -- and his several luxury skyboxes at the MCI Center, FedEx Field and Camden Yards, were used routinely to launder tribal money and help Members evade campaign finance laws and House disclosure requirements.
Abramoff would talk his tribal clients into "sponsoring" a fundraiser for some Member he wanted to get close to, and would then "lease" a skybox, or a room at Signatures, to them for use for the event -- at inflated prices, no doubt. The tribe would be billed for the lease, for the cost of invitations, etc., and for catering. The Member shows up, having done none of the work of preparing the event, collects checks from lobbyists who dine on free food and maybe catch a show or a game, and the bill goes to the event "sponsor," an Abramoff client, who pays... Abramoff, for the use of the facilities. AND, in many cases, I'd wager, for the catering, provided by either Signatures and/or Stackers.
Members of Congress conveniently forget to declare the in-kind contribution for the events, Signatures conveniently forgets to bill them for the food, and that's that. They get away with thousands of dollars worth of checks and no expenses. Abramoff bills the whole thing (plus markup) to his tribal clients, and the Members think they "owe" him for getting them all these checks for "free."
I said a long time ago that the FBI needed to raid Signatures and just mine their "books," such as they may be, for information, and they'd find violations on dozens of Republican House Members. I still think I'm right.