By EVAN PEREZ

WASHINGTON—The White House asserted executive privilege Wednesday over some gun-trafficking-probe documents sought by congressional Republicans, throwing into uncertainty a possible vote to sanction Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt of Congress.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was meeting Wednesday morning to discuss the contempt fight. The panel's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), said the committee was evaluating the White House's assertion.
In a letter to Mr. Issa, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the president had asserted the privilege to block the documents from being released, but he held out the possibility of negotiating an agreement over the documents.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) criticized the White House. "How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he's supposedly never seen?" Mr. Grassley said.
Messrs. Issa and Holder met Tuesday for 20 minutes. From their accounts, it has become a game of chicken, with each side insisting the other act first to resolve the standoff.
Mr. Holder said Mr. Issa rejected his offer to provide documents because the lawmaker wouldn't agree that they would fulfill a subpoena, effectively ending the contempt threat. Mr. Issa said the attorney general didn't come prepared to provide documents and that the contempt threat can't be removed until the documents are produced.
At issue are Justice Department documents that Messrs. Issa and Grassley have sought and that the department resisted turning over in the congressional investigation into a botched gun-trafficking probe called Fast and Furious. The department said the documents reflected internal deliberation or were related to continuing criminal investigations and therefore weren't subject to congressional subpoena.
The dispute centers on a 2009-10 operation run by Arizona-based agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, aimed at building a case against suspected smugglers of firearms to Mexico. The agents allowed suspected smugglers to buy about 2,000 firearms, without intercepting the weapons. Some have since turned up at crime scenes on both sides of the border, including at a December 2010 shootout that killed a U.S. border agent.
If a majority of the committee votes for contempt Wednesday, the matter then could be taken up by the full House. If the House votes in favor, then a contempt citation could be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointee of President Barack Obama who is in Mr. Holder's chain of command. And then things become legally more uncertain. It isn't clear if Congress can compel an executive-branch official to prosecute the attorney general. In the Bush administration, the House voted to hold White House officials in contempt in a similar documents dispute and the Bush-appointed attorney general ordered the U.S. attorney to disregard it. The matter was eventually settled with the production of documents before a civil-court battle ran its course.
The main issue in Fast and Furious remains the contention by Messrs. Issa and Grassley that the Justice Department is improperly withholding documents. The department has turned over thousands of documents—about 7,000 or 8,000, depending on which side is counting—and says it is being forthcoming. By comparison, the inspector general has had access to about 80,000 documents, including those the department has declined to share with lawmakers.
Mr. Issa's staff last month produced a report that includes language holding Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress. If the committee votes to adopt the report, it would be recommending the contempt charge. The report accuses the Justice Department of being slow to hold senior officials accountable for their management of Fast and Furious. It also alleges that the Justice Department has retaliated against people who testified to Congress about the operation.
Republican lawmakers say the documents sought would reveal whether high-level officials were aware of the Fast and Furious tactics, known as gun-walking. They say the documents would also show how the department came to mislead lawmakers in early 2011 when it denied the tactics were used. The Justice Department later withdrew the statement, saying it relied on incorrect information from lower-level officials at ATF.
The matter has become a political fight, with little real impact on Mr. Holder, who is expected to serve out his tenure through the end of the current administration in January. Democrats accuse Republicans of using the contempt measure as a political tool against Mr. Holder and the president. Democrats did some of the same against President George W. Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, who resigned under pressure in a controversy over the firings of U.S. attorneys.
Tuesday's 20-minute meeting, which included Mr. Grassley and Deputy Attorney General James Cole, along with top Democrats on the House and Senate judiciary committees, represented progress in a fight between two sides that have largely communicated via combative letters in recent weeks.
Mr. Holder emerged saying he was prepared to offer documents proving that he didn't know about the Fast and Furious tactics before they became public and that the department didn't intentionally mislead congress. "I think the ball's in their court. They rejected what I thought was an extraordinary offer on our part," he said.
Other people familiar with the meeting said Mr. Holder threatened that if he is held in contempt, he won't turn over documents. Mr. Issa refused to end his probe without first seeing if the documents produced would answer his questions.
On the other side, some Democrats fear that Mr. Issa and Republicans will simply "move the goal posts" if the Justice Department produces the documents requested, perhaps setting up another conflict, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Grassley said Tuesday night: "The attorney general wants to trade a briefing and the promise of delivering some small, unspecified set of documents tomorrow for a free pass today. He wants to turn over only what he wants to turn over and not give us any information about what he's not turning over. That's unacceptable. I'm not going to buy a pig in a poke. Chairman Issa is right to move forward to seek answers about a disastrous government operation."
Write to Evan Perez at [email protected]