Probers eye DeB ‘pre$$ure’

Campaign-donor ‘favor’

The Department of Investigation is looking into whether Mayor de Blasio strong-armed underlings to help a major campaign donor who owed the city nearly $750,000 in back rent, according to a lawyer involved in the case.

Robert Kraus, an attorney for former Department of Citywide Administrative Services Deputy Commissioner Ricardo Morales, told The Post that a DOI probe into whether de Blasio asked top aides to assist businessman Harendra Singh “is now underway” and called on Hizzoner and his minions to cooperate.

“Hopefully, City Hall will not unlawfully interfere in the current DOI investigation, like it did with the last one,” Kraus said.

He was referring to a July 2016 DOI report about the scandalous Rivington House nursing-home deal in which the city mysteriously lifted a deed restriction and allowed the Lower East Side nonprofit to be purchased for luxury housing at a $72 million profit to the buyer.

The report — which claimed that some de Blasio administration officials were complicit in the shady deal — said that DOI’s probe was “hindered” by the city Law Department’s refusal to hand over documents or allow access to City Hall computers.

The mayor’s lawyers relented only after DOI threatened to sue.

DOI declined to comment on Tuesday.

Both Morales and former DCAS Commissioner Stacey Cumberbatch have accused the mayor and his staff of pressuring them to give Singh a break on his now-shuttered Water’s Edge Restaurant, which sat on city property on the Queens waterfront, because he was a big de Blasio donor.

In an extraordinary move, the mayor asked his top political aide, Emma Wolfe, to intervene with DCAS.

Morales has filed a $5 million notice of claim against the city — a precursor to a lawsuit — alleging he was “unlawfully” fired in February in retaliation for complaining about City Hall’s conduct.

The firing was also retaliation for Morales’ objections to “City Hall’s lack of truthfulness regarding the lifting of deed restrictions on Rivington House,” the claim notice says.

De Blasio spokesman Austin Finan said, “DOI’s review is not all new.” He also said the charges raised by Morales and Cumberbatch were exhaustively reviewed by the same federal and state prosecutors who investigated the administration and decided in March not to pursue criminal charges.