The committee knew in advance that Lerner would take the Fifth.
Issa and Gowdy have worked together very closely thus far. And both have recognized the need to pre-plan the hearings' conduct for maximum impact and information.
I'd wager that their pas de deux was pre-planned as a response to precisely what happened -- a self-righteous statement of innocence followed by an assertion of the Fifth.
Lerner's legal status under the circumstances will now be definitively determined and she will be recalled -- and either forced to testify or under some negotiated immunity.
She's not out of the woods.
As a tactical matter, I believe Issa should have kept her ass in a seat before the committee, forced to invoke the Fifth to every question, as a matter of optics as well as for the record. You can bet if a RAT were running the committee and the witness was hostile to his agenda, that’s what would have happened. Issa talks tougher than he acts. I don’t believe Issa and Gowdy planned their interaction because I can’t see what was accomplished by it.
That's what I thought too.
Much as I'd have loved to see Lerner have to stay in the hot seat today, on balance I think Issa's calculation was correct.
Issa, we have to remember, has been so successfully maligned by the Left that even posters here on FR parrot the Left's caricature of him (as a "thug" etc).
Issa came off today as relatively dispassionate, and as a gentleman. Merely by defying the MSM/Left's caricature, he won. So score round 1 for Issa. There are more rounds to come and Lerner will likely be forced to come back -- next time without being able to claim a blanket 5th.