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Vladimir Putin hardly needs to interfere in American democracy

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President Vladimir Putin of Russia must get a kick out of spreading disinformation to Americans for its own sake. Otherwise it is hard to see why he would bother. As has episodically been the case for eight years, Washington is abuzz over allegations of Russian manipulation. The special counsel investigating President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, has charged an FBI informant with telling lies about the president that have been central to Republican efforts to impeach him; the indictment links the informant to Russian intelligence.

You might expect such a dramatic development to derail the impeachment. That would betray a touching faith that the truth mattered in the first place. Republicans who once trumpeted the informant’s claims are shrugging them away and insisting that impeachment will move ahead based on other suspicions and suppositions, though the Republicans’ two-seat majority in the House of Representatives is all but certain to doom any vote, given the misgivings of some members.

This is not to minimise Russian efforts to undermine democracy. Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election, found it “sweeping and systematic”. But politicians of both parties have shown that when it comes to spinning conspiracies and spreading dysfunction they can manage on their own. Republican members of the House are the best at this. The most shocking facts are not emerging from the shadows thanks to congressional investigations but are being paraded in the open thanks to congressional inanity, from the refusal of House Republicans even to vote on the Senate’s bipartisan agreement to tighten border security and help Ukraine and Israel, to their inability to agree among themselves on budget priorities with a government shutdown looming, tiresomely, yet again.

The story of the informant, or misinformant, has the familiar, miasmic qualities of other scandals in the Trump era. No one is said to have peed on anyone, but the tale does involve vivid characters, duplicitous dealings in European capitals, affectionate texts with FBI agents, investigations of investigations, ties to Ukraine and, in the end, benefits to Russia.

Before he was arrested in mid-February Alexander Smirnov, a dual citizen of America and Israel, had been slipping the FBI information for 13 years. The agency trusted him enough to authorise him to commit crimes as part of investigations, though it warned him not to lie, at least not to the FBI, according to the indictment. Mr Smirnov, now 43, was in contact with his handler almost daily; he called the agent “bro”.

In 2013 Mr Smirnov was struggling with credit-card debt of $125,000, according to the Los Angeles Times, but prosecutors say he now has access to $6m, though he does not own a house or have a job, at least in America. He does have nine guns at home, prosecutors say. He has pleaded not guilty.

Here comes the complicated bit. You recall Burisma, the Ukrainian gas firm of which Mr Biden’s son, Hunter, became a member of the board while his father was vice-president? In 2017 Mr Smirnov mentioned to his handler that Hunter Biden was on the board, as was known. Then, in 2020, as Mr Biden was running against Donald Trump for president, Mr Smirnov sent his handler texts “expressing bias” against Mr Biden, according to the indictment. When he promised information incriminating the Bidens, the handler replied, “that would be a game changer.”

Meanwhile, in early 2020, the attorney-general under Mr Trump had directed Scott Brady, a US attorney, to investigate the suspicions of Biden family corruption about which Mr Trump had previously demanded that Ukraine launch an investigation, triggering Mr Trump’s first impeachment. After Mr Brady tasked the FBI with searching its files for “Burisma”, the mention from 2017 popped up, and the handler contacted Mr Smirnov. This time Mr Smirnov said Burisma’s chief executive told him as far back as 2015 that the company paid bribes of $5m apiece to the Biden men. The FBI recorded the new accusations on a “Form 1023”.

In 2023 Republican congressmen got wind of the form and demanded it, extracting it and publicising it after threatening the FBI director with contempt. Although the information was uncorroborated, Nancy Mace, a South Carolina congresswoman, declared at the first impeachment hearing in September that “we already know the president took bribes from Burisma.” Jim Jordan of Ohio called the FBI document “the most corroborating evidence we have”, while Elise Stefanik of New York saw “the biggest political corruption scandal” of “the past 100 years”.

An imperfect spy

Mr Smirnov’s claims did not withstand the slightest scrutiny, according to the indictment. He did not meet any Burisma executives before 2017, and meetings and calls that he described never took place, the indictment says. When agents met with him in September, according to the indictment, Mr Smirnov changed his story and told new lies. He said that when Hunter Biden stayed in Kyiv’s Premier Palace hotel his calls may have been recorded by Russian intelligence. Yet Mr Biden has never even been to Ukraine. Mr Smirnov, prosecutors warned, “is actively peddling new lies that could impact US elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November”. They have successfully argued that he is a flight risk who should be detained pending trial.

No Republican who hyped Mr Smirnov’s accusations has expressed regret, and the leader of the committee pursuing impeachment, James Comer, insists his inquiry, which has yet to produce evidence of a crime by the president, “is not reliant” on them. It would be reassuring to discover that, at bottom, Mr Putin is responsible for all this nonsense. What seems more probable is that he offered an assist to politicians already more than capable of wasting their chance to do some good while in office. 

Read more from Lexington, our columnist on American politics:
The flaws that China’s chief ideologue found in America (Feb 22nd)
Donald Trump’s tremendous love (Feb 16th)
This is not a story about Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl (Feb 8th)

Also: How the Lexington column got its name

Economics

ECB members say inflation job nearly done but tariff risks loom

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Guests and attendeess mingle and walk through the atrium during the IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.

Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images

After years dominated by the pandemic, supply chains, energy and inflation, there was a new topic topping the agenda at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings this year: tariffs.

The IMF set the tone by kicking off the week with the release of its latest economic forecasts, which cut growth outlooks for the U.S., U.K. and many Asian countries. While economists, central bankers and politicians have been engaged in panels and behind-the-scenes talks, many are attempting to work out whether trade tensions between China and the U.S. are — or perhaps are not — cooling.

Policymakers from the European Central Bank that CNBC spoke to this week broadly stuck a dovish-leaning tone, indicating they saw interest rates continuing to fall and few upside risks to euro zone inflation. However, all stressed the current high levels of uncertainty, the need to keep monitoring data, and the high risks to the growth outlook — sentiments also echoed by Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey in his interview with CNBC on Thursday.

These were some of the main messages from ECB members this week.

Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president

On inflation and monetary policy:

“We’re heading towards our [inflation] target in the course of 2025, so that disinflationary process is so much on track that we are nearing completion. But we have the shocks, you know, and the shocks will be a dampen on GDP. It’s a negative shock to demand.”

“The net impact on inflation will depend on what countermeasures are eventually taken by Europe. Then we have to take into account the [German] fiscal push by the defense investments, by the infrastructure fund.”

“We have seen successive movements, you know, announcement [of U.S. tariffs], and then a pause, and then some exemptions. So we have to be very attentive… Either we cut, either we pause, but we will be data dependent to the extreme.”

Watch CNBC's full interview with ECB president Christine Lagarde

On market moves:

“When we had done our projections, we anticipated that… the dollar would appreciate, the euro would depreciate. It’s not what we saw. And there have been some counter-intuitive movements in various categories.”

“The German market has obviously been shocked in a positive way by the program soon to be put in place by the German government, with a commitment to defense, with a commitment to a big fund for infrastructure development.”

Klaas Knot, The Netherlands Bank president

On tariff uncertainty:

“If I look back over the last 14 years, in the initial days of the pandemic I think that was comparable uncertainty to what we have now.”

“In the short run, it’s crystal clear that the uncertainty that is created by the unpredictability of the tariff actions by the U.S. government works as a strong negative factor for growth. Basically, uncertainty is like a tax without revenue.”

On the inflation impact:

“In the short run, we will have lower growth. We will probably also have lower inflation. As we also see, the euro is appreciating as energy prices have also come down. So together with the sort of negative factor uncertainty in the short run, it’s crystal clear that it will accelerate the disinflation.”

It's 'crystal clear' that tariffs could hit growth in the short term, ECB's Knot says

“But in the medium term, the inflation outlook is not all that clear. I think there are still these negative factors. But in the medium term, you might get retaliation. You might get the disruption of global value chains, which might also be inflationary in other parts of the world than the U.S. only. And then, of course, we have the fiscal policy coming in in Europe. So this is actually a time in which you need projections.”

On a June rate cut and market pricing for two more ECB rate cuts in 2025:

“I’m fully open minded. I think it’s way too early to already take a position on June, whether it would be another cut. It will fully depend on these projections.”

“I would need to see a more structured analysis of the impact on the inflation profile ahead of us, and only then can I say whether the market is pricing fair or whether I don’t.”

Robert Holzmann, Austrian National Bank governor

On the need to wait for more data and news on tariffs:

“We have not seen this uncertainty now for years… unless the uncertainty subsides, by the right decisions, we will have to hold back a number of our decisions, and hence, we don’t know yet in what direction monetary policy should be best moved.”

“Before looking at data in detail, the question is, what kind of political decisions will be taken? Is it that we will have some tariff increases? Is it that we will have strong tariff increases? Is it that we will have retribution by high counter tariffs?”

We have not seen this much uncertainty for years, Austrian central bank governor says

On the ECB’s April rate cut:

“I think there’s a broad consensus [on rates]. But of course, at the margin, people differ.”

“My assessment is that at this time, it wasn’t clear yet to what extent [tariff] countermeasures were being taken. Because with countermeasures in Europe, prices may have increased. Without countermeasures, quite likely the price pressure is downward. And for the time being, we don’t know yet the direction.”

On the direction of interest rates:

“I think if the recent noises about an arrangement [on trade] were to be true, in this case, quite likely it is more towards the downside than the upside with regard to prices. But this can be changed with different decisions and the result of which, we may even imagine in [the] other direction. For the time being, no, it will be down.”

“There may be further cuts this year, but the number is still outstanding.”

Mārtiņš Kazāks, Bank of Latvia governor

On opportunity from tariffs:

“With all this uncertainty and vulnerability, this is also the time of opportunities for Europe.”

“It’s a time for Europe to grasp all the aspects of being an economic superpower and becoming a really fully-fledged political and geopolitical superpower, and this requires doing all the decisions that in the past, were not carried out fully.”

“This requires political will, political guts to make those decisions, and to strengthen the European economy and assert its place in a global world.”

Global vulnerability an opportunity for Europe, says ECB's Kazāks

On market reaction to tariffs:

“So far it seems to be relatively orderly … but if one looks at the spillovers to Europe, the financial markets are working more or less fine, we haven’t seen spreads exploding or anything like that.”

“But in terms, however, of the macro scenarios, this uncertainty is extremely elevated in the sense that, given the possible outcomes, the multiple scenarios and their probabilities are very similar with the baseline [tariff] scenario.”

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Economics

Trump insists bond market tumult didn’t influence tariff pause: ‘I wasn’t worried’

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US President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Store in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

President Donald Trump denied that an aggressive bond market sell-off influenced his decision earlier this month to hold off on aggressive “reciprocal” tariffs against U.S. trading partners.

“I wasn’t worried,” Trump said in a Time magazine interview during which he was asked about financial market tumult after his April 2 “liberation day” announcement.

In the decree, Trump slapped 10% across-the-board duties against all U.S. imports and released list of tariffs against dozens of other nations. The extra levies were based on trade deficits the U.S. had against the respective countries and raised fears about inflation, a potential recession and disruption of long-held trade agreements.

Markets recoiled following the release. Treasury yields initially headed lower but quickly snapped higher. The 10-year yield rose half a percentage point in just a few days, one of its quickest moves ever, as investors also ditched stocks and the U.S. dollar.

Ultimately, Trump issued a 90-day stay on the reciprocal tariffs to allow time for negotiation. But he said it wasn’t because of the market tumult.

Pres. Trump to TIME: Would consider it a total victory if U.S. still has 50% tariffs in a year

“No, it wasn’t for that reason,” Trump told Time in the interview from Tuesday that was published Friday. “I’m doing that until we come up with the numbers that I want to come up with. I’ve met with a lot of countries. I’ve talked on the telephone. I don’t even want them to come in.”

Yields have since moved lower, with the 10-year most recently around 4.28%, about a quarter percentage point higher than its recent low. Trump had said when he made the decision to hold off that the bond market had gotten the “yips.”

“The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t. Because I know what we have,” he said. “I know what we have, but I also know we won’t have it for long if we allowed four more years of the gross incompetence. This thing was just running — it was running as a free spirit. This was — this was the most incompetent president in history.”

Though negotiations over tariffs are ongoing, Trump added that he would consider it a “total victory” even if the U.S. has levies as high as 50% still in place a year from now.

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Economics

Bank of England chief focused on tariff ‘growth shock’

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Bank of England governor: We're seeing the uncertainty effect of tariffs

The Bank of England is focused on the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on U.K. economic growth if there is a slowdown in global trade, the central bank’s governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday.

“We’re certainly quite focused on the growth shock,” Bailey told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an interview at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings.

Going into its May 8 monetary policy meeting, the central bank will consider “arguments on both sides” around the impact of tariffs on growth and domestic supply constraints on inflation, Bailey said.

“There is clearly a growth issue we start with, with weak growth … but a big question mark is how much of that is caused by the weak demand, how much of it is caused by a weak supply side,” he continued.

“Because the weak supply side, of course, unfortunately, has the sort of the upside effect on inflation. So we’ve got to balance those two. But I think the trade issue is now the new part of that story.”

Inflation could be pulled in either direction by wider forces, with a redirection of trade exports into other markets being disinflationary, but a retaliation on U.S. tariffs by the U.K. government — which he stressed did not appear likely — pushing up inflation.

Bailey added that he did not see the U.K. as being close to a recession at present, but that it was clear economic uncertainty was weighing on business and consumer confidence.

IMF downgrade

The IMF earlier this week downgraded its 2025 growth forecast for the U.K. to 1.1% from 1.6%, citing the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, higher borrowing costs and increased energy prices.

However, economic forecasting remains mired in uncertainty as countries engage in negotiations with U.S. officials over Trump’s swingeing universal tariff policy, currently on pause. The U.S. has imposed 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos and a 10% levy on other British exports.

U.K. policymakers have expressed hopes of reaching a trade deal with the White House, with U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance saying there is a “good chance” of an agreement.

Bailey told CNBC on Thursday that he would be “very encouraged if the U.K. does make a deal,” but that its economy was very open and services-oriented, so it would still be impacted by a wider slowdown in growth or trade.

He also noted that inflation would increase from the current 2.6% in the coming readings due to effects from markets such as energy prices and water bills, but that the bump up would be “nothing like what we saw a few years ago.”

The Bank of England held interest rates at 4.5% at its March meeting, before Trump shocked the world with the scale of his tariff announcement.

Markets now see the BOE slashing rates to 4% by its August meeting.

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