Attorney General Pam Bondi visits Alcatraz to advance Trump’s plans to reopen the former prison
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are visiting Alcatraz Island today to advance a proposal to reopen the former federal prison.
The move drew immediate condemnation from Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who represents San Francisco, who revealed the visit in a news release Wednesday afternoon.
“With stiff competition, the planned announcement to reopen Alcatraz as a federal penitentiary is the Trump Administration’s stupidest initiative yet,” Pelosi said in a statement Wednesday.
The Department of Justice had not announced the visit and did not immediately respond to questions about it Thursday. But local news media photographed Bondi an Burgum on a boat ramp in San Francisco Thursday morning.
In May, President Trump proposed converting Alcatraz — now one of San Francisco’s most visited tourist attractions — back into a high-security federal prison for violent offenders.
But reopening the island would be a major undertaking. Even if the plan passes the numerous bureaucratic hurdles and regulations before it, construction on the rocky island could be prohibitively expensive.
Pelosi framed the visit as a “diversionary tactic” to draw attention away from his recently passed tax and domestic policy bill that would expand tax cuts while also adding more than $3 trillion to the national debt.
There’s another story that the Trump administration may also be trying to get away from: this week, Bondi has faced scrutiny over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Frustration has mounted amongst Trump supporters over the administration’s failure to release documents tied to the investigation of the Epstein, who was charged with sex trafficking and later found dead in his jail cell in 2019.
It remains to be seen if Bondi and Burgum make any announcements about the reopening of the prison today. Earlier this month, Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social that he had seen renderings of a new site.
“We’re going to look into renovating and rebuilding the famous ALCATRAZ Prison sitting high on the Bay, surrounded by sharks. What a symbol it is, and will be!
It remains unclear how the federal government would reclaim the island, which has operated as a park and museum since the early 1970s. The National Park Service currently maintains the site, which draws more than a million visitors each year.
Local officials and historians have questioned the practical and symbolic implications of converting the island back into a penitentiary. Alcatraz housed some of America’s most notorious criminals during its 29 years of operation, including Al Capone.