WASHINGTON — In 2002, not long after President George W. Bush named him the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Chris Christie emphatically and unexpectedly denounced torture as a means of gathering evidence.

“I cannot believe, given the history of this country, that no matter what the threat to our country that we would forsake our protection of liberties to the extent that we would advocate torture as a way of getting evidence,” he said then, adding, “You have to be coolheaded in times of crisis to be able to not go too far.”

But on Wednesday, Mr. Christie, the New Jersey governor and potential Republican presidential candidate in 2016, was hardly eager to revisit the torture issue. Among presumptive candidates in both parties — including Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeb Bush — he had company in his reticence.

Most of the possible presidential candidates have not plunged into Washington’s debate over the Senate Intelligence Committee’s withering report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s brutal interrogation tactics — and some are ducking questions entirely, illustrating the delicate politics of national security.