Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Thursday visited Alcatraz, where they are expected to announce plans to reopen the dilapidated California prison that closed decades ago for being too expensive to operate and has since been transformed into a museum.
Bondi’s visit comes as she finds herself at the center of the Jeffrey Epstein controversy and the fallout from her decision not to release more records related to the ex-financier’s sex trafficking operation, including a purported list of his clients she has since denied exists.
Bondi has come under fire from swaths of President Donald Trump‘s political base for her handling of the case. Some high-profile members of Trump’s base have called for her resignation, but Bondi said she would not resign.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) cosponsored a discharge petition with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to force a vote to release the complete Epstein files. And on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Bondi needed to be more transparent regarding Epstein after the Justice Department announced it would not make any more disclosures in the case.
The timing of Bondi’s trip to Alcatraz did not go unnoticed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA).
“Pam Bondi will reopen Alcatraz the same day Trump lets her release the Epstein files,” Newsom said in a statement. “So … never.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called the idea of transforming Alcatraz back to a prison Trump’s “stupidest initiative yet.”
“It should concern us all that clearly the only intellectual resources the Administration has drawn upon for this foolish notion are decades-old fictional Hollywood movies,” a Pelosi spokesperson said in a statement.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie also weighed in, adding, “There’s no realistic plan to make Alcatraz reopen as anything other than a wonderful attraction that it currently is.”
Despite the skepticism, Burgum posted on X after the visit: “Spent the day on Alcatraz Island, a National Park Service site, to start the work to renovate and reopen the site to house the most dangerous criminals and illegals. This administration is restoring safety, justice, and order to our streets.”
For nearly three decades, the prison off the coast of San Francisco housed some of the most notorious criminals in U.S. history, including gangster Al Capone, George “Machine Gun Kelly” Barnes, and Robert Stroud, better known as the “Birdman of Alcatraz.”
The prison opened on July 1, 1934, and closed on March 21, 1963. Since then, the National Park Service has turned it into a museum. A trip to Alcatraz is among the “must-see” things for visitors to San Francisco. It is a huge driver of tourism, selling kitschy jail-themed souvenirs such as life-size replicas of jail cell keys and shot glasses with a prisoner at the bottom trying to get out.
Boatloads of tourists ferry in every half hour, taking self-guided audio tours of the tiny prison cells and learning about the gangsters, murderers, and thieves who once called it home.
Earlier this year, Trump issued the stunning directive to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to “REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!”
Even though the Bureau of Prisons has been struggling with short staffing, chronic violence, and crumbling infrastructure at its current facilities, Trump said he was counting on the agency to fulfill his vision of rebooting Alcatraz, which has become the subject of many books and movies.
Trump has disregarded the prison’s outdated technology and the very reason then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy chose to close it in the first place: It was too costly to maintain and operate.
The Washington Examiner visited the prison earlier this year. The cell blocks are now three tiers of faded yellow and green cells with peeling paint and rust on the bars. The toilets are mostly cracked, hollowed-out holes, though some have bricks clogging them. Most cells have chunks of concrete missing, the plumbing doesn’t work, the beds are bent metal frames, and wires come out of fireplaces for the officers. None of the equipment works, and most structures are missing massive things such as walls or a roof.
Then, there’s the bird excrement, something visitors smell before they see. Droppings coat the buildings, walkways, and roads.
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Saying Alcatraz needs an upgrade is a gross understatement.
It would need the renovation of a century, something that would take an estimated billion dollars and a lot of time.
