{"id":1919229,"date":"2023-04-25T21:10:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T01:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-michigan-republican-house-speaker-pleads-guilty-to-accepting-bribes-from-marijuana-businesses\/"},"modified":"2023-04-25T21:11:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T01:11:11","slug":"former-michigan-republican-house-speaker-pleads-guilty-to-accepting-bribes-from-marijuana-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/former-michigan-republican-house-speaker-pleads-guilty-to-accepting-bribes-from-marijuana-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Michigan Republican House Speaker Pleads Guilty To Accepting Bribes From Marijuana Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fformer-michigan-republican-house-speaker-pleads-guilty-to-accepting-bribes-from-marijuana-businesses%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1919229&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Former Michigan House Republican leader Rick Johnson has pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from businesses seeking marijuana licenses in the state. Johnson chaired the Medical Marijuana Licensing Board from 2017-2019, during which time he received cash payments and other benefits totaling at least $110,200 from businesses and lobbyists seeking medical marijuana licenses. Johnson faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. This guilty plea comes as investigators continue to look into how money has influenced marijuana policymaking in Michigan. Lobbyists Brian Pierce and Vincent Brown, who allegedly gave Johnson $42,000 in cash and benefits, have also agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with investigators. Michigan&#8217;s marijuana business raked in $2.3 billion in 2022, making it the second-largest cannabis market in the U.S. behind California. Don&#8217;t miss out on the latest news, download the Daily Wire app now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rick Johnson, who led Michigan House Republicans from 2001-2004, pleaded guilty Tuesday to accepting bribes from businesses seeking marijuana licenses in the Great Lakes State.\u00a0 From 2017-2019, Johnson chaired the Medical Marijuana Licensing Board, a state board that had the authority to decide which businesses could get into the marijuana business. During that time, Johnson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":324,"featured_media":1919230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[13098,19322,6002,5806,3653,5561,4601,8573,3911,5654],"class_list":["post-1919229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-accepting","tag-bribes","tag-businesses","tag-guilty","tag-house","tag-marijuana","tag-michigan","tag-pleads","tag-republican","tag-speaker"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1919229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1919230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}