Former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, who was freed from Russia during a prisoner swap earlier this year, endorsed Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) in a new campaign ad.
In the campaign video, Reed recounts how he was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison for more than two years before he was released over the spring.
“I never thought I’d see Texas or the United States again,” Reed says. “But August Pfluger never gave up on me, just like he never left a man behind in battle. Today, I’m free because August never gives up on Americans.”
Pfluger, an Air Force veteran, is running unopposed for reelection in Texas’s 11th Congressional District.
In 2019, Reed received a nine-year prison sentence in Russia for allegedly assaulting a police officer while he was drunk, charges the former Marine has denied.
Pfluger last year sponsored a resolution in the House that called for the Russian government to release Reed and condemned the Kremlin for detaining American citizens.
After months of negotiations, the Biden administration swapped a Russian jailed in the U.S. on drug charges for Reed, who in May credited the president for his release.
Pfluger greeted Reed and his family in April when the Texan returned to the U.S.
“Standing on the tarmac alongside Trevor Reed’s loving parents to watch him take his first steps back on free American soil is a moment I will never forget,” the congressman said in a statement at the time.