Father of ex-US marine freed from Russian jail says Ted Cruz did nothing to help return his son

‘I don’t care what or who runs against him, I will work for their campaign to defeat that son of a b****’

File: Ted Cruz did not speak about the US marine publicly for two years (Getty Images)

The father of a former Texan marine who was recently released from jail in Russia has lashed out at senator Ted Cruz by calling him an “embarrassment” and accused him of doing nothing to get his son back.

Joey Reed, the father of Trevor Reed who was detained in Russia for over two years, said he received no help from Senator Cruz when he was reaching out to him.

“He didn’t do anything,” Mr Reed said, speaking of Mr Cruz in an interview with 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 b****.”

The 30-year-old former marine was recently released by Russia under a prisoner swap programme in the US after around two years of efforts by his parents, Mr Reed and Paula Reed, who reached out to several senators to bring attention to their son’s misery.

He was arrested in Moscow in 2019 for allegedly assaulting a Russian police officer and was sentenced to nine years in prison. His conviction reportedly came despite a lack of sufficient evidence in the matter.

The former marine suffered injuries to his ribs and a Covid infection during his jail term.

The senior Reed said when he had contacted Mr Cruz on behalf of his son for help, the Republican senator’s staff told him he couldn’t speak out about their son’s detainment publicly because the senator was an “enemy of [Russian president Vladimir] Putin”.

Mr Reed said he was so dissatisfied with Mr Cruz’s lack of action that when he finally released a public statement about his son’s release and called the family to congratulate them, he shot back at the senator: “Where have you been for the last two and a half years?”

The lack of public action was partly admitted to by Mr Cruz himself. The senator defended his stance by saying that any public statement from his side would have been “counterproductive” to the marine’s release.

“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,” Mr Cruz said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News.

“That would have endangered Trevor and delayed his release.”