Examination of a claim that Obama knew about the BP disaster in advance, and used it to gain $85 million dollars from insider trading

Here is the item, as it was forwarded to me by a certain very intelligent person (no sarcasm - it's true):

On Wed, 23 Jun 2010, ____________ wrote:

> From ______: Thought you should know: Obama is personally standing to earn $85 million or more from the BP oil spill...
>
> Goldman Sachs wasn't alone either in its seeming 'foreknowledge' of the
collapse of BP's stock value due to the Gulf disaster as BP's own chief
executive, Tony Hayward, sold about one-third of his shares weeks before
this catastrophe began unfolding too.
>
> But according to a report by the Financial Stability Board (financialstabilityboard.org)
the largest seller of BP stock in the weeks before this disaster
occurred was the American investment company known as Vanguard, which
through two of their financial arms (Vanguard Windsor II Investor and
Vanguard Windsor Investor) unloaded over 1.5 million shares of BP stock
saving their investors hundreds of millions of dollars, chief among them
President Obama.
>
> President Obama holds all of his wealth in just two Vanguard
funds, Vanguard 500 Index Fund where he has 3 accounts and the Vanguard
FTSE Social Index Fund where he holds another 3 accounts, all six of
which the FSB estimates will earn Obama nearly $8.5 million a year and
which over 10 years will equal the staggering sum of $85 million.
>
> The
FSB further estimates in this report that through Obama's 3 accounts in
the Vanguard 500 Index Fund he stands to make another $100 million over
the next 10 years as their largest stock holding is in the energy giant
Exxon Mobil they believe will eventually acquire BP and all of their
assets for what will be essentially a 'rock bottom' price and which very
predictably BP has hired Goldman Sachs to advise them on.
>
> Important
to note is that none of this wealth Obama, Goldman Sachs, and others are acquiring would be possible without this disaster. How did Goldman and Vanguard (among others) 'somehow' know what was going to
happen before it actually did, including the US energy giant Halliburton which 2 weeks prior to this disaster just happened to purchase the World's largest oil disaster service company. Boots & Coots'.
> Hmmmm...............

Yes Hmmmmm... -- I wonder what, if anything, in this article is true. Here is what I came up with (I got the gist of it in about 20 minutes and then spent an hour or 2 putting it down on "paper"):

I'm not sure, but I think this "Adam Dobson" blog is the primary source
for the claim I'm responding to:
http://stream.adamdodson.org/items/view/2802.

There is an "evidence" link in the article (look for the text):
" [President Obama] holds all of his wealth"

which connects to a PDF of a document labeled "Executive Branch Personnel
PUBLIC FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE REPORT". This government form would
conveniently discourage almost anyone from trying to read it. The only
thing I can easily make out is that it applies to Obama, and the largest
identified asset appears to be "U.S. Treasury Bonds" (see below).

Sandi Berns evidently put more work into reading the "evidence" on the
Adam Dobson web page. She posted the 1st comment I see (by the time you
look it may be several pages down the list) ON the Adam Dobson web page,
and she apparently enjoys Moderator status on the Dobson site:

"Sandi Behrns [Moderator] 2 days ago
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The actual documents cited & provided through
links indicate that the President holds nearly ALL HIS WEALTH is US
Treasury bills, NOT in Vanguard funds. As far as those Vanguard funds go,
they are highly diversified funds, not large holdings of individual stocks
(this is the reason Obama opted to not use a blind trust - because the
transparency is there & a conflict cannot be found.)
As for this "FSB report" that supposedly states that Obama will reap $85M
off these funds over 10 years - no link at all is provided. Hmmm.... that
would be an incredible return for retirement accounts currently totaling
at most $303,003 (yes that's ALL 6 accounts.) I know this site is not the
original author of this piece, but really - you should at least review the
purported evidence before posting."

She mentions an "FSB report" to which Adam Dobson provides no links.
Another source did supply this link: financialstabilityboard.org. The
site looks fairly intimidating to explore, and it looks to me like they
only do very high level reports; a newsflash on Obama's illicit stock
gains would look VERY out of place (not to mention I don't see one).

Now, if Rush Limbaugh doesn't mention this, we will know that it is a lie.
If he does, I'll take a 2nd look.

If none of the high visibility right wing commentators has the decency to
point out that such lies are being widely distributed[**] targeted to
their own audience, it will just confirm my impression that they are pure
"ends justifies the means" propagandists with no journalistic ethics.

I have seen this happen before with a hoax based on a misreading of a
scientific paper as claiming C02 content in the atmosphere had not
significantly grown in the last 100 or so years. If true, it would of
course be one of the biggest pieces of news EVER in support of the
anti-Admin people's position. But the big guys (i.e. those with
visibility and somethiing to lose) never touched it. If they had, all of
their audience would have been exposed to the refutations, and that would
not be a good thing for THE CAUSE. The result:
generally, the readers of such items NEVER see the miriad refutations or
at least not by anyone they trust, so millions continue to believe long
refuted claims with no merit whatsover.

I concluded after this that the strategy of the BIG right wing
commentators is to let such "throwaway" claims circulate (the Mainstream
Media never even notices them) and whether by design or otherwise, they
add powerful (though untrue) support to the claims by Limbaugh &c that
Obama is a corrupt ideologic fanatic who doesn't believe in anything, who
always voted for the most left wing bill (and also always voted "present"
on every bill), and a Marxist/Fascist.

Finally, I suspect the claim that Goldman-Sachs acted as if they knew
about the impending doom to BP Stocks may also be made up. Such claims
often are, to add the credibility of something "everybody knows" to the
main thing they are claiming.

[**] "widely distributed": There are 755 quite diverse looking hits on
GOOGLE{obama bp "$85 million" "to earn" goldman-sachs} with very few
apparent accidental matches)