DC Madam’s phone record release

I’ll admit to being baffled by the release of the DC Madam’s phone records (wiki).  Her explanation for the rush to release is incoherent, about as senseless as the prosecution arguments for why the numbers should have remained under a court-ordered gag.  She has left herself open for legal troubles in the future (in fact, her problems have worsened by the acknowledgment that the release was necessitated by sloppiness in the procedure of spreading the information around), and seems to have lost all her leverage in her current criminal proceedings, leverage which she acknowledged she was happy to have.  Could the records have been altered to remove the numbers of the big names, with this release just being part of the ‘sweating’ process?  She’s already taken down one sanctity-of-hetero-marriage horndog (with a history of similar allegations, and whose apology came out so quick he must have had it ready).  Is that supposed to be the warning to the rest of official Washington?