The State Department has not delivered diplomatic assistance to the widow of a man shot down by drug lords while on a jet ski trip on the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Rep. Ted Poe said Wednesday. Poe, R-Texas, whose district contains the U.S. side of border-straddling Falcon Lake, said Tiffany Hartley did not even receive help from the U.S. consulate in Mexico to file a complaint against members of the Zeta drug cartel that is suspected of shooting David Hartley while the couple was skiing through the Mexican side of the border weeks ago.
"There seems to be inefficiency on this issue. She shouldn't have to be filing charges" on her own, Poe said, noting that the Mexican authorities were slow to help Hartley in part because they said she made no official complaint to the proper authorities.
The State Department has also been "blissfully silent" on efforts to convince the Mexican authorities to let U.S. investigators help search for Hartley's body, Poe told FoxNews.com. The department must convince Mexican officials to let the FBI and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency investigators help conduct the search for Hartley's body and for the culprits, he said.