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I am not buying Melson’s story. He knew.

So did Obama, DOJ, FBI, CIA and likely State Department...and the NSA didn’t know???

He probably did; but what matters is that he came in from the cold first, and Issa and Grassley are going to let him flatter himself publicly because it makes him happy and it makes the others who've not been cooperating unhappy.

It sounds like it's a real-life version of the prisoner's dilemma. Here's a restatement of it taken from the wikipedia article on The Prisoner's Dilemma:

A classic example of the prisoner's dilemma (PD) is presented as follows:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated the prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies for the prosecution against the other (defects) and the other remains silent (cooperates), the defector goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full one-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only one month in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a three-month sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

As that article summarizes:

In the classic form of this game, cooperating is strictly dominated by defecting, so that the only possible equilibrium for the game is for all players to defect. No matter what the other player does, one player will always gain a greater payoff by playing defect. Since in any situation playing defect is more beneficial than cooperating, all rational players will play defect, all things being equal.

Melson defected first, so he wins the prize.

“I am not buying Melson’s story. He knew.”

And I doubt that the Congressional investigators buy it, either. But in order to catch bigger game, sometimes you have to let the smaller game go. And by doing so in such a public manner, they send a clear message to those in other agencies that it’s time to come have a little chat with Chairman Issa’s staff. Look at what happened to the head of BATFE: he keeps his job, keeps his ability to retire, and so on.