DETROIT – Welcome to Flashpoint this Easter Sunday. We’re in the middle of Passover and Ramadan, so it’s a special time of year for many, many people, and here’s wishing you the very best.
It was a wild week on the news front -- from wild and dangerous weather in the South and Midwest to a wild scene at the state capitol in Tennessee. And, of course, we watched the historic proceedings in New York on Tuesday, a former president was arrested and charged with 34 felony counts. The legal eagles are going back and forth over the nature and long-term prospects of the charges. But what stood out most to me was that the next hearing date was set for Dec. 4. If that calendar holds, that means eight months from now, and by then, there seems to be a decent chance one of the other investigations into President Trump will have landed with more charges, all against the backdrop of the 2024 election cycle.
Read -- Amid Trump indictment, 2024 hopefuls try to stay visible
We’ll set that aside during Flashpoint to focus on the charges that landed this week in Lansing in a corruption and bribery case of a scale we haven’t seen in Lansing in eons. The former Speaker of the House, Rick Johnson, was charged with taking more than $100,000 from companies seeking medical marijuana licenses.
Also -- $59M in marijuana tax distributions going to Michigan communities: How much is going where
A little later, by the way, we’re going to dig into the state of the weed business, but as we look back on when it felt like a license to print money, why is Michigan so ethically challenged? If you’ve ever tried to file a Freedom of Information Act request on the upper reaches of government, you may understand part of the problem.
You can view the April 9, 2023, episode of Flashpoint in the video player above.