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I really don't know how companies deal with conflict checks but before Musk the entity that would need the waiver would be the "company" as represented by its governing body. I don't know if the company switching ownership requires Baker to proactively get a new waiver, or whether it's assumed that it's Musk's responsibility to check at that point. His previous work as FBI's general counsel was not exactly a secret.
Absolutely not, and I'd agree it's reasonable for people to be suspicious of me. I would be shocked if Baker was the only general counsel available to do this work, because "doc review" is extremely tedious work reserved as the lowest level of hell for attorneys. My assumption (depending on how big the volume of files is) would be they had a team of review attorneys do a first pass review of the disclosures and only after that was done did upper legal management step in for a spot check.
I keep wondering why my position is apparently so inscrutable to people because I never said that conflict of interest doesn't exist. I already said above "I think it's plausible that Jim Baker would at least have a strong motive to conceal things that would impugn the FBI which is his previous employer, but motive is not the same thing as commission." I think the pushback I'm getting on this issue is maybe that "I don't have enough evidence to believe Baker was acting in bad faith" is being interpreted as having a silent "therefore, he acted in good faith" follow-up.
For myself, I'm essentially taking the conflict of interest as a strong signal of probable bad faith, as in, a good faith counsel would have noticed the conflict, and assigned the task to someone else. Baker obviously did not, and that's the sort of thing that seems like it should need a very good justification, which inclines me to believing Musk (because the world of bad justifications is much larger than the world of good ones). And frankly, I'm pretty used to unconvincing, bored, boiler-plate denials from spooks, who often seem to kind of suck at advanced lying.
And generally, the context of Musk's takeover really seems like the sort of thing where Jim Baker in particular ought to have gotten a new waiver about this topic in particular. OTOH, it's not unreasonable to ask why Musk didn't think of this angle beforehand. On the gripping hand, Musk is doing a ton of shit, it's understandable if he drops a ball occasionally.
That's fine but there's a lot of gaps here papered over by assumptions. Do we know that any files were withheld? If files were withheld, do we know it was because of Baker's FBI connection? We don't know the answer to either question and Musk can trivially clear up both, but he hasn't. Don't you find the lack of detail from Musk to be suspicious? His actions do not comport with someone heralding himself as a vanguard for transparency.
Not particularly, he seems to be slow-rolling this whole thing. And my point was that I think Baker needs to do a lot to justify himself even in the event that he did literally nothing wrong, due to the conflict of interest. I would say that Baker could offer some transparency on his end too, if he really had a good reason to insert himself into the vetting anyway, but I guess there is probably a lot of potential problems for him there as a lawyer.
General but relevant question, does confidentiality cover the reasons your client fired you?
Generally yes. RPC 1.6 is what governs here and the only exception to confidentiality that comes close to what you're describe is:
The comments on the rule (#10) seem to imply that the complaint from the client needs to be at least somewhat formalized through a proceeding of some sort. So while the "controversy" language seems a bit permissive, there's also the strong professional incentive to not be known as the lawyer that will sing a song about his client every time he's fired.
I have to deal with this all the time because it's common for unhappy public defense clients to try and get their lawyers fired. Generally the song and dance I have to do is make vague allusions that there has been a "complete breakdown in the attorney-client privilege". In some rare circumstances, judges have asked for more detail, and so to cover my ass I ask them the judge to sign a court order forcing me to disclose confidential information (crucially, I have the right to disobey this order if I wanted to). I then submit a sealed declaration that only the judge will read with a lot more details, but even in those circumstances I try not to get too carried away.
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