I haven’t seen anything indicating Feinstein received Ford’s permission to release the letter before she did so.
And agree we may never know who leaked the info to the press “necessitating” the release. I mean, all we have is a Democratic senator’s office repeatedly pleading for permission to release the letter and then later releasing it in response to an unknown leak of the letter which happened to come at the last possible moment of the confirmation proceedings.
yeah, after reading up on it now, it appears that feinstein forwarded the letter to the fbi after the existence of the letter was published and after other democrats started pressuring her to do something with it, but before ford agreed to be outed.
so, if forwarding the letter to the fbi would have caused, or would have been likely to cause, ford's identity to be revealed, then feinstein should not have done so until a couple of days later than she did - after either the press outed ford or ford outed herself before the press could get to it.
otoh, if if forwarding the letter to the fbi would not have caused, or would not have been likely to cause, ford's identity to be revealed, then feinstein probably should have forwarded the letter earlier (probably because if ford still would have not wanted it forwarded, even knowing it would not beome public, then feinstein should still have not forwarded it).
i think the former is more likely, but i'm not completely sure. so my judgement based on what i know/surmise now is that she probably released it a couple of days too soon, probably in response to pressure from dem colleagues.
if she or her staff leaked it, obviously that was wrong.