US Attorney General Pam Bondi visited Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay yesterday, 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 Ms Bondi speaking with park rangers and touring the island site as she was trailed by television cameras.
She was accompanied by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
In May, Mr Trump said he was directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which Ms 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 US 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.
