De Blasio’s price to pay

Call it poetic justice: To pay the lawyers who defended his unethical scheme of raising money in massive sums, including from interests with business before the city, Mayor de Blasio will have to go begging, collecting less than $50 at a time. The delicious comeuppance came in an advisory opinion from the Conflicts of Interest Board, scotching de Blasio’s plans to pocket defensefund cash in nearly unlimited sums from just about anyone — and essentially recreate the very problems that plagued him in the first place.

Under current city law, “public servants who proposed to establish legal defense funds that would help defray legal expenses” can go right ahead, wrote the board — so long as they collect less than $50 from any donor save family and friends with no city business, same as the corruption-proofing limit on the value of any gift they might receive.

Over the past year, as Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance mined ample evidence the mayor and his aides solicited donations from individuals seeking favors from City Hall, de Blasio sent his high-priced lawyers IOUs.

Hizzoner won’t say how many hours or dollars in bills the attorneys racked up — but the milliondollar mark would not be a stretch.

Give the conflicts board credit for wising up. On the eve of de Blasio’s 2014 inauguration, they had poorly advised the mayor that he could go right ahead with his integrity-busting fundraising plans, so long as he personally hit up no one with business pending or imminent with city agencies.

The new ruling left de Blasio the debtor desperate enough to seize on the board’s suggestion that a change to city ethics laws might be in order.

Don’t even.