Giuliani: Gonzales Should Get Benefit of Doubt

WASHINGTON — Nobody tried to pressure Rudolph Giuliani into doing anything improper when he was a U.S. attorney in the 1980s, he said yesterday. Perhaps, he surmised, for one simple reason.

"I think people were afraid," the former prosecutor known for a hard-charging style quipped to reporters yesterday.

As the only former U.S. attorney running for president, Mr. Giuliani weighed in yesterday on the escalating dispute between Congress and the White House over the firings of eight federal prosecutors. Many Democrats have said the U.S. attorneys were dismissed for political reasons, and some, along with a few Republicans, have called for the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, to resign.

Mr. Giuliani told reporters yesterday that Mr. Gonzales was a "decent" and "honorable" man. "He should be given a chance to explain, and everybody should sort of give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him to explain," the former New York mayor said.

His top rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Senator McCain of Arizona and the former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, have taken similar positions.

He did not say whether top White House aides should be called to testify about their involvement under oath before Congress, which Democrats are seeking. He said that when he was in the Justice Department, there were specific protocol for communication between the White House and the department, which is seen as having more independence than other federal agencies.

Mr. Giuliani was in the Washington area to give a speech to the National Newspaper Association and to accept the endorsement of a former Maryland governor, Robert Ehrlich. Mr. Ehrlich lost his bid for re-election last fall.