Biden requests resignation from U.S. Attorney for Hawaii Kenji Price
GEORGE F. LEE / JULY 2020
U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii Kenji Price spoke during a press conference last year.
U.S. Attorney Kenji Price for the District of Hawaii has been asked to resign by the Biden administration, according to a spokeswoman.
It is routine for U.S. attorneys to step down when a new president takes office.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Monty Wilkinson spoke with all U.S. attorneys in a conference call Tuesday and asked them to resign, said spokeswoman Judy Philips of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Hawaii.
All but two were reportedly asked to submit their resignations and step down by Feb. 28.
One of the high-profile cases during his tenure was against Michael Miske Jr. and 10 associates indicted in 2020 for racketeering. Some named in the indictment were also charged with murder, kidnapping, arson and robbery among numerous charges.
Federal investigators described Miske as the head of a criminal enterprise that modeled itself after the Mafia and gangsters in New York and Chicago.
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At the time of the indictment, Price said the organization “wreaked havoc in our community for years” and that charges “strike a blow to organized crime in Hawaii and they pave the way for justice that’s long overdue.”
Price grew up in Hawaii and graduated from Gonzaga University in Washington. He earned a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and had served in the Army with the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
Prior to his appointment as U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii, Price served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York and was a director at the Honolulu firm of Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing. He previously was a partner at Carlsmith Ball LLP.
