WASHINGTON – A federal prosecutor is continuing to press for the jailing of a Time magazine reporter, despite the newsweekly’s recent decision to turn over records related to the journalist’s confidential sources for stories about the alleged leak of a CIA operative’s identity.

The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a court filing yesterday that he had reviewed the records Time turned over last week and determined that the testimony of the magazine’s White House correspondent, Matthew Cooper, “remains necessary.” Mr. Fitzgerald did not elaborate.

Mr. Cooper and another reporter facing the possibility of jail for refusing to testify in the same investigation, Judith Miller of the New York Times, are scheduled to appear before a federal judge in the capital today. The judge, Thomas Hogan, cited both reporters for contempt last October. An appeals court upheld the contempt citations. Last month, the Supreme Court declined to take up the case.

The probe stems from allegations that top Bush administration officials deliberately unmasked the CIA operative, Valerie Plame, to strike back at her husband, Joseph Wilson IV. In an op-ed piece, Mr. Wilson – a former ambassador to Gabon – had accused President Bush of exaggerating evidence that the then-president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, sought nuclear materials in Africa.

Attorneys for both of the journalists caught up in the investigation have asked that they not be sent to jail, but instead be put under some form of house arrest.

While the reporters have vowed not to testify about their confidential sources, Mr. Fitzgerald argued that jailing the journalists might eventually persuade them to change their minds.

Last week, when announcing the magazine’s decision to comply with a subpoena, the editor in chief of Time Inc., Norman Pearlstine, said he thought the move “obviates the need for Matt Cooper to testify and certainly removes any justification for incarceration.”

However, there were indications yesterday that Time’s actions may yet boomerang on Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller.

In his brief, Mr. Fitzgerald gave considerable prominence to Mr. Pearlstine’s recent accounts of how he struggled with the issue and ultimately decided to comply with the court’s order. The prosecutor described the episode as an instructive example of how some journalists, upon reflection, have revised their positions on the confidentiality issue. “Like editor Pearlstine … Miller’s views may change over time, especially if what is viewed as her ‘irresponsible martyrdom’ obstructing an important grand jury investigation is seen to undercut, not enhance, the credibility of the press,” Mr. Fitzgerald wrote. The martyrdom comment was made by a law professor who has been critical of the stance taken by Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper, Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago.

Both of the reporters have sought to buttress their arguments by filing letters with the judge. Ms. Miller included one from an Army officer who oversaw the 101st Airborne Division in the 2003 Iraq war, Lieutenant General David Petraeus. He effusively praised the Times newswoman and said it was “unlikely” she would betray her sources. “Judith is clearly a highly professional journalist, one who has demonstrated to me that she will keep her word,” General Petraeus wrote. In a separate letter, eight members of an Army unit that searched for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq said they trusted Ms. Miller with “highly classified information.”

Among the letters submitted by Mr. Cooper was one from a former Time White House correspondent, Hugh Sidey. “In this case it seems to me the protection of a source transcends the other considerations, which do not seem to threaten national security,” he wrote.

Mr. Sidey said in an interview that the identity of the CIA operative, Ms. Plame, was widely known-well before Mr. Cooper talked to his sources. “You know this game as well as I do,” Mr. Sidey said. “That name was knocking around in the sub rosa world we live in for a long time.”

The veteran reporter’s claim that the case does not involve national security appeared to be at odds with Mr. Pearlstine’s repeated statements last week that such issues factored into his decision to turn over the disputed documents.

In a brief interview yesterday, Mr. Pearlstine said he was simply echoing the invocations of national security by the courts that have heard the case. “The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari was tantamount to an acceptance that it was a matter of national security, since that was so much a part of the trial court and appeals court decisions,” the editor said. “I was never raising a conclusion of my own as to the question of whether this case truly involves a matter of national security. It’s, in fact, not at all clear to me it does.”

Mr. Pearlstine declined to comment on the prosecutor’s effort to turn Time’s decision against Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller.