Ex-Senate bigwig hit in leak rap

A STEAMY AFFAIR with a New York Times reporter has landed the longtime director of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the middle of a federal leak investigation.

James Wolfe, who served on the committee for 31 years, was charged with lying to investigators about slipping information to reporters for the The New York Times, Huffington Post and Buzzfeed News, according to court papers.

Prosecutors said that Wolfe, 58, was sleeping with one of the reporters, who The Times identified as national security reporter Ali Watkins.

“I’ve watched your career take off even before you ever had a career in journalism ... I always tried to give you as much information that I could and to do the right thing with it so you could get that scoop before anyone else ... I always enjoyed the way that you would pursue a story like nobody else was doing in my hallway,” Wolfe allegedly wrote in emails.

A Washington, D.C., grand jury handed down the indictment, which details “tens of thousands of electronic communications” with three reporters.

Investigators have seized Watkins’ emails as part of the investigation, according to the paper.

Wolfe retired from the committee in May.