WRAY HEADS FB-LIE

’fess to vacay fib

FBI Director Christopher Wray confessed Thursday that he cut short his appearance at a Senate oversight hearing in August to take a break in the Adirondacks using the official FBI jet — confirming The Post’s initial scoop despite initially indicating it was a “business” obligation.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tore into Wray (inset) at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing for his “indefensible” conduct and noted that Wray had implied to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) he had to leave as part of his official duties.

Wray’s hurried Aug. 4 departure — over Grassley’s protests — denied Republicans the chance to grill him over whistleblower allegations of a coverup in the FBI’s investigation into first son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

Hawley noted that three days after Wray bolted from the hearing, The Post’s Miranda Devine reported “that the reason that the hearing had to be cut short is because you were flying on a Gulfstream jet for a personal vacation in the Adirondacks.”

“Please tell me that’s not accurate,” Hawley told Wray.

Wray argued the hearing wasn’t cut short because “we had agreed beforehand on the time and length of it” before adding: “As to how I fly — I am required, not only permitted but required, to fly on an FBI plane wherever I go.”

“So you were going on vacation?” Hawley interjected.

“I was, yes,” Wray confessed.

“So you’ve left a statutorily required oversight hearing in order to go on a personal vacation in the Adirondacks?” Hawley followed up.

“I took a flight to go visit my family, as had been previously arranged in conjunction with the leadership of the committee,” Wray responded.

“The ranking member, Chuck Grassley asked you during the hearing, he said, ‘I assume you must have other business.’ You said, ‘Yes.’ He then said, ‘If you have a business trip, you’ve got your own plane. Can’t it wait awhile?’

Abrupt departure

“[Grassley] then said,” Hawley continued, “‘We only just heard half an hour ago that now you have to leave. We were going to have a seven-minute round [of questioning], followed by a three-minute round, I’ve got seven people on my side of the aisle [Republicans] . . . who are waiting for this additional round. Is there any reason we can’t accommodate them for 21 minutes?’ And you said you had a plane to catch, you had somewhere to go, and now we find out it was for vacation?”

“The reference to other business was not a reference to that day,” Wray pleaded. “It was a reference to the following week where Sen. Grassley and I were going to see each other in Iowa, when I had other business in Iowa and I did in fact see him then.”