1) No, you don't need to speculate. He describes three years of events that all happened in private (with no resolution). Starting from the very first sentence of the piece ("In January 2020, I told two members of Racket’s core team …")
2) The private email is relevant because its message is so starkly at odds with the public statement. It goes directly to the whole thesis of the piece: that bullies gain power through secrecy. He does not owe the bully any secrecy, because the bully has misused secrecy in the past. His attempt to find a principled middle ground is reasonable.
2) The private email is relevant because its message is so starkly at odds with the public statement. It goes directly to the whole thesis of the piece: that bullies gain power through secrecy. He does not owe the bully any secrecy, because the bully has misused secrecy in the past. His attempt to find a principled middle ground is reasonable.