http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15503171/"WASHINGTON - Staffers for Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., ate so much free sushi at disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s Washington restaurant that people joked that they would have “starved to death” without the lobbyist’s free meals, a Republican consultant says.
“Frankly, it was widely viewed in D.C. that Mr. Abramoff effectively exerted implicit control over Mr. Burns whenever he and his team needed to get something accomplished,” the consultant — Monty Warner, who says he’s still a friend of Abramoff’s — writes in a letter to the editor of the Whitefish Pilot, a weekly newspaper, which was obtained by NBC News.
“Mr. Burns’ staff — and perhaps Mr. Burns — were known to eat free sushi/meals often at Mr. Abramoff’s D.C. restaurant, Signatures, and the joke was if they didn’t, they would have starved to death,” says the letter, which Editor Richard Hanners said would run in the paper’s Thursday edition.
Warner told NBC News that he wrote the letter only “after seeing Burns make the claim that he had only taken $5,000 from Jack Abramoff.” He added, “I immediately thought ‘$5,000 worth of sushi,’ as sushi was something that Signatures specialized in and often had ordered or sent to Hill offices.""
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