Marine Trevor Reed was released from a Russian prison on April 27, with no help from Texas Senator Ted Cruz according to Joey Reed, Trevor’s father.
“He’s an embarrassment to the state of Texas,” Joey Reed said. “I don’t care what or who runs against him, I will work for their campaign to defeat that son of a bitch.”
Trevor Reed, 30, was arrested in Moscow in 2019 and accused of assaulting Russian police. Possibly facing nine years in prison, Reed suffered a broken rib and COVID-19. On April 27 Reed was released as part of a prisoner exchange.
On his return to Texas, Joey and Paula Reed commended home state legislators like Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Republican Reps. Michael McCaul and August Pfluger, and Democrats Joaquin Castro and Sheila Jackson Lee, for their efforts to secure his release.
Joey Reed said that when he initially called Ted Cruz’s office for help, but was told by staff that Cruz’s opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline made him an enemy of Putin, and that interference could hurt his son. Senator Cornyn and Rep McCaul both publicly opposed the pipeline.
“‘Because Senator Cruz is such an enemy of Putin, he’s afraid that if he says anything, it will hurt your son,’” a staffer for Cruz said around the time of the sentencing, according to Reed. “We said, ‘Are you serious?’ ‘Well, yeah.’ ‘Okay. Thanks a lot.’ So he’s never said another word.”
Cruz confirmed the story.
When Ted Cruz called the Reed family upon Trevor’s release, Joey said, “I hit him point blank: ‘We are not appreciative.’ He said, ‘Well, anything I can do,’ and I said, ‘We said we needed your help two and a half years ago, not now.’”