The parents of Trevor Reed have pleaded with US President Joe Biden to meet with them during visit to Texas – almost three years after Russian authorities imprisoned the former US marine for assault.
Speaking ahead of Mr Biden’s visit to Fort Worth on Tuesday, Joey and Paula Reed launched a last minute appeal for Mr Biden to meet with them to discuss their son, whom Russia sentenced to nine years in jail in 2019 on allegations of assaulting a Moscow police officer.
“We were told there wasn’t enough time in today’s schedule to get us in,” his mother said during an appearance on Fox & Friends First when asked about the closing “window of opportunity” for the Biden administration to work towards their son’s release.
“We had actually been pushing before the [Russian] invasion [of Ukraine] for a way to ‘please get Trevor and Paul Wheelan home’”, Ms Reed said of her son and another US individual imprisoned in Russia. “And so whenever the invasion occurred we knew it was going to be devastating for us”.
The visit by Mr Biden to Fort Worth - although unrelated to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine – will fall on the 13th day of Russia’s assault on its eastern neighbour and arguably the worst Western relations with Moscow since the Cold War.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Air Force One en route to Texas that the White House is working to secure a meeting between Mr Reed’s family and the president in the near term and the Mr BIden “is looking forward to that”.
Acknowledging that Russia’s war on Ukraine was “probably going to delay things for Trevor”, Ms Reed added that his family are mostly “concerned because his health is really really declining” and that he had been denied medical treatment.
“He sounded terrible. His voice was sore. He said that he’d been sick for a very long time,” she said of a recent phone call with their son. “They were still denying his TB testing. He had that exposure in December, and he had symptoms that he wanted to be tested or receive medical treatment, which they were denying everything.”
His father added that his “son protected [Biden] at Camp David when he was vice president” and that the former US marine had been coughing up blood almost daily inside his Russian prison cell, where he has been since his 2019 sentencing. His family and Trevor deny the allegations.
Following their appeal to Mr Biden, Texas senator John Cornyn rebuked the president for failing to meet Mr Reed’s family during a visit that was designed to show his administration’s support for veterans with a visit to a veterans clinic in Fort Worth.
“Trevor Reed has been held in a Russian prison with little to no access to badly-needed health care or communication with his family, and his situation is only going to get worse given the political climate in Russia,” said Mr Cornyn in a statement.
“This Administration must do more to free Americans held hostage in Russia,” the Republican said. “President Biden meeting with the Reed family while in Texas on a day he is touting the importance of caring for our veterans would be a welcome start.”
Mr Biden took the opportunity during his State of the Union address last week to address US veteran healthcare and according to the White House will be traveling with veterans affairs secretary Denis McDonough to Texas.
The Independent has approached the White House for comment.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press.
