Luskin, Rove's attorney, declined to confirm or deny the contents of the e-mail.
But Luskin said in an interview Monday that Rove never identified Plame by name and never intended to reveal her identity. He said Wilson's wife came up as an afterthought in a conversation that Cooper had initiated, primarily for a story about welfare reform.
"The fair inference ... is that Rove was trying to warn Time ... away from perpetuating things that turned out to be false, and not try to encourage him to say anything about Wilson's wife," Luskin said.
Rove "was sharing what he knew but with the specific understanding it would not be disclosed," Luskin added, noting that in the e-mail reported by Newsweek, Cooper wrote that he was speaking to Rove "on double super secret background."
At the same time, Luskin declined to say whether Rove knew that Plame was a covert agent, even if he did not know her name, which analysts said was a crucial factor in determining whether the law was broken.
They also said that although Rove asserted he did not intend to disclose her identity, a jury might find otherwise based on other factors, such as whether he discussed Plame, even anonymously, with other reporters.
Plame was identified by name as a CIA employee in a July 14, 2003, column by journalist Robert Novak. Wilson has suggested that his wife's identity was revealed in retaliation for his New York Times article.
Luskin declined to say whether Rove had discussed Plame with reporters, but said Rove had fully cooperated with special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald and the grand jury probe. Luskin said Fitzgerald had assured Rove that he was not a target of the investigation.
Fitzgerald's precise interest in Cooper's conversation with Rove is unknown. Time had turned over Cooper's notes, but Fitzgerald said that was insufficient. Cooper agreed to discuss the case last week, after Fitzgerald threatened to imprison him for refusing to testify about his dealings with an anonymous source, now acknowledged to be Rove. Several days after Novak's column was published, Cooper helped write an article for Time's website that said "administration officials" had told Time that Plame was a CIA official.
Cooper relented on talking about the anonymous source after he obtained what he said were additional assurances from Rove and his lawyers that he could discuss their conversation without violating confidentiality. He is expected to testify before a federal grand jury about his conversation with Rove soon, perhaps this week.
Although New York Times reporter Judith Miller never wrote about the matter, she was held in contempt and jailed for refusing to reveal confidential sources with whom she discussed the case. Unless she relents, which she has said she refuses to do, she will remain incarcerated until the grand jury's term expires four months from now.
