For the duration of Barack Obama’s two terms in office, Robert Wolf was perhaps the only Wall Street mover and shaker in the White House orbit whom Obama actually liked. In the run-up to the 2008 presidential primaries, Wolf, then serving as chairman and C.E.O. of UBS Americas, had been at the forefront of a generational shift in the allegiances of Democratic megadonors, enabling Obama to build the fundraising juggernaut that helped beat Hillary Clinton. When the general election arrived that fall, Wolf functioned as Obama’s eyes and ears on Wall Street as its leaders peered into the abyss of the oncoming financial crisis, helping the candidate to pass the real-time test of leadership that John McCain (whose immediate response to the collapse of Lehman Brothers was to declare, “The fundamentals of the economy are strong”) flunked with a vengeance.