Attorney General Eric Holder: Rudy Giuliani is playing politics on 9/11 terror trial move

Holder told the New Yorker that it was "exceedingly strange" to hear the one-time zealous prosecutor publicly express a lack of faith in the U.S. justice system.

"If Giuliani was still the U.S. Attorney in New York, my guess is that, by now, I would already have gotten 10 phone calls from him telling me why these cases needed to be tried not only in civilian court but at Foley Square," Holder told the magazine.

Under protest from Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer, Holder and the Obama Administration have backed away from trying 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Manhattan federal court.

But Holder is not kowtowing to critics like Giuliani and former Vice President Cheney, who believe Mohammed and his Al Qaeda henchmen should be prosecuted by military tribunals.

"I don't apologize for what I've done. History will show that the decisions we've made are the right ones," Holder said.

"It's distressing to me that on an issue that is truly a matter of life and death for this nation people will find a way to make that a partisan issue," he said.