My guess it that the Trump tape was a known quantity in DC for months, on both sides of the aisle. They were just waiting for the right time to release it. In fact, they may have wanted to release it later, but they had to release it now to cover the revelations about Hillary’s leaked Wall Street speeches. This whole thing was choreographed. The Globalist Establishment simply was not going to let Trump become President—period.
It’s clear republicans didn’t know about the tape. During the primaries, they did everything to try to derail Trump. Had they known, republicans would have leaked the tape last year.