The family of former US Marine Trevor Reed blasted Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz this week, calling the lawmaker an “embarrassment to the state” over his purported lack of action to secure Reed’s release from a Russian prison.
“He didn’t do anything,” Reed’s father, Joey, told the Dallas Morning News. “He’s an embarrassment to the state of Texas, let me just say that. 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 was released April 27 as part of a prisoner swap after serving nearly 1,000 days behind bars. He had been charged with assaulting two Moscow cops who were driving him to a police station after apprehending him at a party where he allegedly became blackout drunk. Reed’s family and supporters claimed the charges were trumped up to allow the Kremlin to hold their son as a bargaining chip.
Following their son’s return, Reed’s parents praised President Biden, White House officials and members of Congress from both parties who assisted in the release.
Joey Reed told the Dallas Morning News that he and his wife had reached out to Cruz’s office several times since Trevor’s arrest. During one phone call, they claimed, one of the senator’s staffers told them Cruz would be unable to offer public help.
“Because Senator Cruz is such an enemy of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, he’s afraid that if he says anything, it will hurt your son,” the staffer reportedly said.
“We said, ‘Are you serious?’ ‘Well, yeah.’ ‘Okay. Thanks a lot.’ So he’s never said another word,” Joey Reed recounted.
Following Trevor Reed’s release, Cruz posted on Twitter that he was “relieved” the former Marine was freed and reunited with his family.
“It is imperative that Russia release the other Americans who they continue to wrongfully detain,” the senator added.
Cruz also reportedly called the Reed family to congratulate them, but his message was not well received.
“And I told him right on the phone, I said, ‘Where have you been for the last two and a half years?’” Joey Reed recounted. “I hit him point-blank: ‘We are not appreciative.’ He said, ‘Well, anything I can do,’ and I said, ‘We needed your help two and a half years ago, not now.’”
In a statement to The Post, Cruz said he was “overjoyed” by the former marine’s release, adding that “fighting to free American hostages wrongly held by tyrannical governments is a deep personal passion and I have spent my entire Senate career fighting to release Americans in captivity.”
“With Trevor Reed’s case, my team was in repeated discussions with both the Trump and Biden Administrations–including speaking directly to the US Ambassador to Russia about the urgency of freeing Trevor,” Cruz added. “We were repeatedly advised by Administration officials that my taking a public role in this specific case would be counterproductive, and that because of my role fighting to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, leaders in Russia may well have linked the two issues.”
“That would have endangered Trevor and delayed his release, significantly complicating our effort to secure his freedom,” he went on.
Cruz continued by saying that he is “very sorry Trevor’s family interpreted this as not prioritizing his release,” adding “my heart breaks for them for having to endure all the pain of Trevor’s imprisonment.”
“I would have eagerly taken a public role loudly calling for Trevor’s release, but I believed that the best way for me to help was to vigorously press the Administration behind the scenes and work through the State Department to bring Trevor home as soon as possible.”
Reed’s parents said they were unaware of any major effort made by Cruz behind the scenes to secure their son’s release.
In contrast to Cruz, Joey Reed lauded the work by another Texas Republican — Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — describing him as a “giant, loud, outspoken critic of Putin and Nord Stream 2, and he’s been a giant, public voice for our son.”
“We’ve been so thankful, and we believe that the public voice is what made the difference in our son’s case, not the traditional ‘go behind the scenes and just check up on people,’” he added.
