Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were greeted with startling advice Thursday to "follow the trail of dead Russians" after Sen. Ron Wyden asked witnesses how to investigate links between the Kremlin and organized crime.

Clint Watts, a security expert who was testifying at an open hearing on Moscow's tactics for influencing campaigns, said there are a slew of murdered Russians "tied to this investigation."

"They are dropping dead even in Western countries," he said.

Watts, a former FBI special agent, did not name or allude to known murder victims. However, there have been a spate of suspicious deaths and arrests of Russian cybersecurity officials in recent weeks. A notable Kremlin critic was also gunned down outside his Kiev hotel March 23.

Watts was responding to a question from Wyden, Oregon's senior U.S. senator, who asked how the committee should track ties between the Kremlin, Russian oligarchs and organized crime syndicates.

He also told senators they should examine possible links between eastern European websites that peddle fake news or pro-Kremlin propaganda and Russian intelligence.

"There are a disproportionate number of fake news outlets, conspiratorial websites that are run from there," Watts said, adding that he believes those websites are funded by "some sort of Russian intel asset."

The two other witnesses, Eugene Rumer, who directs the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Roy Godson, professor emeritus of government at Georgetown University, asked to answer Wyden's question in a classified setting.

At the open hearing, Wyden, a Democrat and one of Congress' foremost advocates for investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and President Donald Trump's potential ties to Russians, said the committee should "lift the fog of secrecy" on what happened during the election.

Instrumental to that, he said, is following transactions that may link the Russian government or its actors to election-meddling efforts or Trump associates.

Wyden, who is also the ranking Democrat on the Senate's finance committee, said he will work to use that committee's powers in an attempt to obtain Trump's tax information along with financial documents related to the Trump Organization and its corporate partners.

"Information about Donald Trump's finances, his family and his associates may lead to Russian," Wyden said. "The committee needs to follow the money wherever it leads."

-- Gordon R. Friedman

503-221-8209; @GordonRFriedman