Giuliani seeks to head off cover-up question

WASHINGTON —  Rudolph W. Giuliani’s GOP presidential campaign scrambled Wednesday night to deflect a report questioning whether when he was New York’s mayor, his office sought to cover up his extramarital affair with Judith Nathan in the Hamptons by charging his security expenses to obscure city agencies.

The report on Politico.com throws new attention on Giuliani’s messy personal life just five weeks before the first votes in Iowa -- and could undercut his defense that his affair with future wife Nathan had no effect on his duties as mayor.

The report said tens of thousands of dollars in travel and security expenses for Giuliani were shifted into little-known city agencies from 1999 to 2001 -- right at the time Giuliani reportedly was beginning an extramarital affair with Nathan, who had an apartment in Southampton, N.Y.

Giuliani’s police details bought gas and stayed at various hotels over those three summers, billing the city for the lodging, according to travel records obtained by the website.

Giuliani on Wednesday night insisted that the expenses were legitimate costs related to his round-the-clock police security detail.

“They followed me everyplace that I went . . . and they took care of me, and they took care of their records,” Giuliani said during the CNN/YouTube Republican debate. “They were handled, as far as I know, perfectly appropriately.”