She was aware since July and Ford didn't want to go public. Ford went to her representative, her representative went to Feinstein and Feinstein asked her to put it in writing. She was protecting a citizen at the request of said citizen. They have rules and guidelines they have to follow when cases involve private citizens. If you were in Ford's place would you have wanted the info released before you were ready to deal with it by someone simply wanting to stop a political agenda making you collateral damage? The only reason she even released info that she had the letter at all was because when she was inquiring about how to get the claims investigated BEFORE the hearings were over, dems found out she had it and was mad she wasn't sharing it with them either. (She would have needed approval/consent by more than one person or committee and it risked Ford's identity becoming public so she didn't pursue those avenues.) She gave it to the FBI, the FBI gave it (redacted) to the WH, yet within 90 min of the WH getting hold of it, Ed Whelan was checking out her linked in page and her name hadn't been publicly released yet.
This has all been reported. This isn't brand new info.