Bill’s big bucks blues

And here we are once again. For the better part of his first term, Mayor de Blasio found himself under multiple investigations, primarily due to aggressive fundraising and alleged pay-to-play activities involving donors. They gave big money to his political operation, namely the Campaign for One New York, and he gave them special access to his administration.

The cloud of those investigations essentially lifted mid-March when both the Manhattan district attorney and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District simultaneously announced that their probes would end in no charges being brought — even as they noted City Hall’s propensity to intervene on behalf of the deep-pocketed.

Four and a half months later, the cloud is back over the mayor and his political operation.

Following reporting by the Daily News’ Greg Smith, the city Department of Investigation opened up a probe this week into the February firing of Ricardo Morales, a former deputy commissioner at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

In a notice of claim against the city, Morales charges that he was fired because he raised objections over City Hall’s intervening on behalf of donor Harendra Singh, owner of the Long Island City restaurant Water’s Edge, which operates on city property — and where Singh hosted two fundraisers for de Blasio, for which he failed to bill the campaign.

Separately, Singh had failed to pay the city nearly $750,000 in back rent, and Morales tried to get the money from Singh — only to find Emma Wolfe, de Blasio’s top political operative, weighing in on Singh’s behalf.

Morales also charges that he had raised questions regarding the city’s official story on the deed lifting of Rivington House — a onetime nursing home for people with AIDS. That action resulted in Rivington being purchased for $28 million, and then being resold to a luxury condo developer for $116 million.

But the timing of the Morales’ firing raised other suspicions: City Hall knew that he had become a witness in the federal probe into the mayor’s alleged pay-to-play. The mayor claims Morales was fired for cause. Maybe so. And perhaps DOI — like the U.S. attorney and the district attorney — finds nothing serious in examining Water’s Edge and the mayor.

But as the year winds its way toward Election Day, New Yorkers will have yet another reminder that their mayor tolerates in his inner circle behavior that repeatedly seems to creep to, well, the water’s edge of questionable ethical behavior.

If not deeper.