WASHINGTON, July 3: E-mails surrendered by Time magazine to a grand jury probing the leak of a CIA agent’s identity show that top White House aide Karl Rove might have leaked her name, several US television channels reported on Sunday.

Mr Rove, who is President George W Bush’s deputy chief of staff, was named as a source by two lawyers who asked not to be identified, the reports said.

Valerie Plame, who was identified as a CIA agent in the report, is the wife of former US envoy Joseph Wilson, a strong critic of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq.

Some reports have indicated that the White House leaked her name in retaliation for a July 6, 2003, article in the New York Times by her husband, accusing the Bush administration of using bogus intelligence to claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

It is a federal crime to deliberately reveal the identity of an undercover CIA official. A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the leak and began subpoenaing reporters to find the source.

Robert Luskin, an attorney for Mr Rove, however, said that his client ‘never knowingly disclosed classified information’ and that ‘he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA’.

Time on Thursday reluctantly agreed to hand over the internal e-mails, which were largely correspondence between their editors and reporter Mathew Cooper, along with his notes on reporting related to the case.

Mr Cooper and the New York Times reporter Judith Miller have been ordered to testify before the grand jury or face prison.

Both have indicated they would rather go to jail than reveal their sources to the grand jury investigating how CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name was leaked to the media.

The two reporters could be jailed as soon as Wednesday for refusing to cooperate in the investigation. Time , which was separately held in contempt in the case, has said that it hopes its cooperation will mean Mr Cooper will not be incarcerated.

Recent US media reports show that Mr Rove spoke to Mr Cooper in July 2003, during the week before published reports revealed the identity of operative Valerie Plame.

Although Mr Wilson once said he suspected Mr Rove played a role in destroying his wife’s CIA cover, the White House has dismissed questions about Mr Rove’s actions.

Mr Rove has testified before a grand jury investigating the Plame case on three occasions.

His latest appearance was in October 2004, which is about the same time the prosecutor investigating the case has said his investigation was complete with the exception of the testimony of Cooper and Miller.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has already interviewed many White House officials and journalists, including President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Syndicated columnist Robert Novak was the first to publish Ms Plame’s name, but Mr Fitzgerald has indicated that whoever leaked the information to Mr Novak also might have leaked the information to other journalists, which could constitute separate violations of a federal law protecting covert agents.