- NEW: A House Democrat says Republicans want to hurt the president, not help the country
- The House is scheduled to vote Thursday on holding Attorney General Holder in contempt
- It would be the first time a sitting attorney general is held in contempt of Congress
- At issue is whether Holder complied with a subpoena from congressional investigators
Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. House will proceed with a vote Thursday on holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for withholding documents involving the failed Fast and Furious weapons crackdown, Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday.
"We're going to proceed," Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters. "We've given them ample opportunity to reply."
His comment came the day after House Republicans rejected another offer by the White House and Justice Department to turn over some documents sought by congressional investigators.
Administration and justice officials met Tuesday with senior aides to Boehner and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa to try to head off the House vote, which could bring the unprecedented contempt citation of a sitting attorney general.
A senior House Republican aide said the offer to let congressional investigators see some of the requested documents in return for dropping the contempt measure was insufficient.
According to a summary provided by a senior administration official and a Justice Department official familiar with the discussions, the Justice Department offered to give Congress access to some of the documents generated between February 4, 2011, when the Justice Department initially told Congress there was no inappropriate activity, and December 2, 2011, when it acknowledged the program was "fundamentally flawed."
"We reached out and showed them a representative sample of the documents so they could see firsthand the types of communications in contention," said the administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Fast and Furious investigation started with agent's death
President Barack Obama has asserted executive privilege on some documents in the dispute, preventing them from being turned over on grounds they include internal deliberations traditionally protected from outside eyes.
The Justice Department also offered to conduct a briefing, give Congress documents related to whistle-blowers in the case, and work with the committee to respond to any questions it had after reviewing the materials.
In the summary, the Justice Department maintained the offer would give Congress "unprecedented access to deliberative documents." The administration official said the documents would "dispel any notion of an intent to mislead Congress."
"This was a good-faith effort to try to reach an accommodation while still protecting the institutional prerogatives of the executive branch, often championed by these same Republicans criticizing us right now," White House spokesman Eric Schultz told CNN. "Unfortunately, Republicans have opted for political theater rather than conduct legitimate congressional oversight."
Boehner, however, said a failure to cooperate by the Obama administration forced House Republicans to take up the contempt measure.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee last week recommended citing Holder for contempt for failing to release documents related to the panel's investigation of Fast and Furious.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives launched Operation Fast and Furious out of Arizona to track weapons purchases by Mexican drug cartels. It followed similar programs started in the Bush administration.
However, Fast and Furious lost track of more than 1,000 firearms it was tracking in the operation, and two of the lost weapons turned up at the scene of the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
The showdown between Issa and Holder over the program dates back to subpoenas issued by the House committee last year.
Issa and Republicans contend that Holder and the Justice Department are concealing details of how Operation Fast and Furious was approved and managed.
Issa, White House clash over Fast and Furious executive privilege
Democrats argue that Issa and his GOP colleagues are using the issue to try to score political points by discrediting Holder and, by extension, the president in an election year.
A video released Tuesday by Democrats on Issa's panel showed the chairman making past allegations of White House links to Fast and Furious, juxtaposed with Issa saying Sunday there was no evidence of a White House cover-up.
Some gun rights advocates, including the NRA, maintain that the program that allowed hundreds of weapons, including assault rifles, to end up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels was a way for the Obama administration to press for new gun control laws.
Issa said Sunday he had e-mails showing the administration planned to point to the operation and push for a "weapons ban or greater reporting."
However, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, pushed back at Issa's claim Tuesday, telling reporters, "I don't believe that, and I think it's very unfortunate that people are coming up with these theories."
Meanwhile, Democratic leaders in the House concede that some Democrats could join with Republicans to hold Holder in contempt, citing pressure from the National Rifle Association.
"There's been no polling of our membership on how they will respond to the NRA, but suffice it to say certainly that the NRA is a major force" in Washington, Rep. John Larson, D-Connecticut, told reporters Wednesday. He predicted the "strong majority" of the Democratic caucus would oppose the contempt measure.
The committee vote last week was on strict party lines, with Republicans supporting a contempt recommendation and Democrats opposing it. It occurred before the gun lobby formally registered its support for the contempt resolution.
Rarely has any pro-gun-rights Democrat representing a rural and Southern district broken with the NRA's position on key votes, especially in an election year.
The NRA's executive director, Chris Cox, sent a letter to Issa after the committee vote last week, expressing support for his efforts. In the letter, Cox wrote that "it's no secret that the NRA does not admire Holder," adding, "for years we have pointed out his history of anti-Second Amendment advocacy and enforcement actions."
"The reason we support the contempt resolution is the same reason we first called for Attorney General Holder's resignation more than a year ago; the Department's obstruction of congressional oversight of a program that costs lives in support of an anti-gun agenda," the letter said.
The NRA, which frequently weighs in on congressional races with endorsements and support of a national grassroots network, also put members on notice that anyone who votes against contempt could face consequences in the fall election.
"This is an issue of utmost seriousness and the NRA will consider this vote in our future candidate evaluations," the organization said.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, alleged last week that Republicans were targeting Holder because he is fighting their efforts to suppress voter turnout in November.
On Wednesday, Larson chastised Republicans for pushing ahead on the contempt vote as part of a strategy to prevent economic progress and harm Obama's re-election chances in November.
"This is just all part of a continuing plan, and whether it's suppressing the vote or suppressing the economy -- this obstructionist regime that we see that continues to block because they think they would rather see President Obama fail than the nation succeed," Larson said.
Issa's panel has been seeking documents that show why the Justice Department decided to withdraw as inaccurate the February 2011 letter.
However, Holder has refused to turn over materials containing internal deliberations, and asked Obama to assert executive privilege over such documents last week.
In a letter to Obama on Monday, Issa said the president's assertion of executive privilege means that he and his most senior advisers were involved in "managing" Fast and Furious and the "fallout from it" or that the president asserted a power he knows is unjustified "for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation."
"To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the (Justice) Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that is still the case," Issa said in his letter.
Schultz responded that Issa's account "has as much merit as his absurd contention that Operation Fast and Furious was created in order to promote gun control."
"Our position is consistent with executive branch legal precedent for the past three decades spanning administrations of both parties, and dating back to President Reagan's Department of Justice," Schultz said. "The courts have routinely considered deliberative process privilege claims and affirmed the right of the executive branch to invoke the privilege even when White House documents are not involved."
A supporting document provided by Schultz listed five such cases, including an October 1981 assertion by Reagan involving documents describing internal deliberations inside the Department of the Interior and another by Reagan a year later involving internal Environmental Protection Agency files.
Opinion: Don't be nosy about Fast and Furious
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