Russia Investigation

Clinton Watts, former FBI agent, offers a bit of information on the progress and direction of the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference in the US Presidential election. He thinks one needs to "follow the trail of dead Russians." It not exactly news that people deemed dangerous to Putin have a way of turning up dead.

RON WYDEN: There is a stack of documents - a voluminous stack of documents that points to various financial relationships between people who are close to the president, part of his world and the Russians. And for me, one of the key questions in doing an investigation is to always follow the money. In fact, Clint Watts, the former FBI man, came to our committee and said, Senator, you're right, you ought to follow the money, but you also ought to follow the trail of the dead bodies.

MARTIN: We are joined now by Clinton Watts, who offered up that advice to the committee back in March. He's a former FBI special agent, and he joins us on the line from New York. Mr. Watts, thanks for being here.

CLINTON WATTS: Thanks for having me.

MARTIN: That's a provocative statement that you gave the committee. What did you mean when you advised senators to, quote, "follow the trail of dead Russians"?

WATTS: From the Russian context, if they were meddling in the U.S. election and it was through financial relationships, maybe inducements that they wanted to push, they would try to close those off. And if you look over the past year, really year and a half, you've seen a string of senior Russian officials that have died, some of them obviously of natural causes but some of them under suspicious circumstances.

And so when I would be looking at this, that's where I would focus is why are these people dying strangely? And which one of those might've had financial connections?

Less sensational than the headline, but suggestive. Some details would be nice.

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