No, the larger public learned about it in November because that's when the Democratic party aligned media (e.g. CNN, CNBC) suddenly considered it headline news.

No, the larger public learned about it in November because that's when the Democratic party aligned media (e.g. CNN, CNBC) suddenly considered it headline news. Look at that google trends spike. Did that look natural? They picked two stories for explaining the loss and pushed them extremely hard - this and the Russian conspiracy stuff. Both stories share one salient characteristic - if both were reason for the election loss, neither the Democratic party nor Hillary could be blamed for it. It is unlikely that news media that aligns with and donates money to the Democratic party are going to run stories about how Hillary was a terrible candidate who shouldn't have been allowed to run in the first place any more than Fox News might suddenly start supporting Democrats one day.