US Attorney General Bondi visits Alcatraz after Trump call to reopen notorious prison

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(Reuters) -U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi visited the infamous Alcatraz prison in the San Francisco Bay on Thursday, weeks after President Donald Trump said he would order the long-shuttered facility, now operated as a historical site, to once again house violent criminals.

Aerial footage showed Bondi speaking with park rangers and touring the island site as she was trailed by television cameras.

Bondi, who has faced criticism from many Trump supporters over the Justice Department’s decision to end a review of material associated with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, did not speak to reporters during the visit.

Trump in May said he was directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which Bondi oversees, to rebuild and reopen the facility as a prison.

It is unclear if there are concrete plans to do so. The Trump administration did not request funds to reopen it from Congress in its latest budget proposal.

Alcatraz was closed as a maximum-security prison in 1963 after 29 years of operation, because it was too expensive to continue operating, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.

The federal prison at Alcatraz had housed notorious U.S. criminals such as Al Capone before it closed. Now managed by the National Park Service, it is one of San Francisco’s most popular tourist destinations.

The Trump administration has dubbed a recently opened remote migrant detention center in the Florida Everglades “Alligator Alcatraz.”

A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the visit.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Leslie Adler)