Trevor Reed: Biden REFUSES to meet family of Marine detained in Russia citing 'schedule constraints'
White House declined requests from the family of a former US Marine, Trevor Reed, who is in prison in Russia, to meet President Joe Biden during his visit to Fort Worth, Texas, on Tuesday, March 8, to address veteran agenda. The desperate family plans to stage a demonstration outside the event's venue with the hope that they may get the chance to meet the President.
Trevor Reed, a Texas native, was detained in Russia in 2019 on charges of assaulting a police officer during a drunken incident. He was sentenced to nine years in prison in July 2020. His family believes that Russia jailed him in hopes of using him as a pawn in a larger fight with the US. Reed pleads not guilty and says he does not remember the incident. During his service in the Marines, Reed served as a presidential guard at Camp David during Barack Obama's administration. His family is now quite desperate to bring him home and they plan to do everything they can.
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Reed's family requested to meet President Biden when he came to Texas to address his veteran agenda, with the hope that they could urge him personally to intensify efforts to win their son’s release. But as the request was declined and they cannot get on Biden’s schedule, they will demonstrate outside the site of his visit instead, a spokesman said on Monday.
In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Trevor's mother Paula Reed told, “It’s devastating. we thought that this would be the perfect opportunity for us to see him and be able to talk to him for just a quick few minutes, and they couldn’t get that done. So we’re pretty disappointed.”
Joey Reed, Trevor’s father, said their plan to demonstrate outside the site of Biden’s visit Tuesday was “an act of desperation.” He told, “The president, like all presidents, is heavily insulated by a staff, and we just think that, if he saw us standing there, that he might say ‘Pull over, is that Trevor Reed’s family?’ And talk to us. And if he doesn’t, at least he might just see the signs, and then we might get the meeting later. But we’re grabbing at straws. Our son is seriously ill, and we need the president to bring him home.”
In an interview with The Hill, Joey Reed says this small favor by the President of meeting them could benefit everyone. He told me, “We desperately want to meet with our president, who we voted for; our family are centrists. We just think that it would benefit everyone if we could just speak to him for a few minutes."
Not only Reed's family but many US public have called Reed’s detention unjust and have been working to secure his release. His family now has concerns that the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine could negatively impact his case given the break in US relations.
Besides Reed, Russia is also holding Paul Whelan, another former Marine who is also a Canadian, British and Irish citizen. He is serving a 16-year jail sentence after being accused and convicted of spying. His family denies the charge and the US has also described his detention as unjust while pushing for his release. President Biden has put some effort into the case as he raised the cases of both Reed and Whelan during his one-on-one meeting with Putin in June 2021 in Geneva.