Gov. Hochul talked “community matters” with a high-powered campaign donor weeks before he got a $338 million contract to provide rapid tests as part of an alleged pay-to-play scheme as she ran for a full term of office.

Charlie Tebele, who leads New Jersey-based Digital Gadgets, wrote an email to Hochul policy director Micah Lasher on Dec. 16, 2021 in which he alluded to speaking with Hochul at a fundraiser he hosted for her campaign weeks earlier, the Buffalo News reported Monday.

“We had a conversation with the Governor regarding some community matters when we had her in for a meeting,” Tebele wrote,” and I was asked to reach out to you for follow up.”

Among the topics Tebele listed were “Covid tests — we have a community company that has available supply.” Hours later, he followed up with an email to Lasher headed: “URGENT ADDED INFO.”

“I read that the governor wants to be able to mail instant Covid tests to peoples [sic] homes,” Tebele wrote. “My company has the Covid tests in stock and can work with the State to ship them individually to peoples [sic] home- the same day we receive the order.”

“I would love to be able to speak to someone and see how we can help with this and partner with the State to solve this immediate problem,” Tebele concluded. “Please let me know when we can chat.”

Hochul’s administration approved the $338 million outlay four days after the email was sent, with a second order worth $299 million to follow a month later.

“There should have been a hearing on this months ago,” said Assembly Minority Leader William Barclay, one of the Republican legislators who has previously called for an investigation into the matter.

“With every new detail that’s reported, it becomes more clear that the governor has been less than forthcoming about an arrangement that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars,” he added. “It’s time Democrats in the Legislature do their job and ask some unpleasant questions.”

“Assembly & Senate Republicans called for an investigation into Gov. Hochul’s COVID test kickback scheme months ago. Where are the Democrats?” Assemblyman Jaret Gandolffo tweeted Monday in response to the story.

The latest revelation about Hochul and her administration’s interactions with Tebele are one more sign of how the governor mixed her official and political duties while running for a full term in office last year — with the help of a record campaign war chest.

Tebele and his family ultimately contributed roughly $300,000 to the Hochul campaign, which also hired his son as a staffer.

But Democratic legislators have shown no appetite for probing the controversial deal to buy rapid tests at nearly double the price paid by states like California.

Reps for state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) – whose chamber recently completed a complex investigation of the residency of an incoming Republican legislator – did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

“I don’t have a comment on that,” Stewart-Cousins told The Post in September.

It remains unclear whether Albany County District Attorney David Soares has jurisdiction over the deal or the resources to probe it.

“In order to maintain the integrity of all matters, The Office of the Inspector General never confirms or denies the existence of any investigations unless and until a finding is made,” a spokesman for state Inspector General Lucy Lang, whose office probes malfeasance within state agencies, told The Post Monday.

Hochul has denied that she ever gave special treatment to campaign donors while defending the rapid testing deal as as necessary while the state confronted a omicron-fueled surge of COVID-19 cases in late 2021 that strained testing supplies.

“Governor Hochul did not oversee the procurement process and was not involved in the day-to-day procurement decisions,” gubernatorial spokeswoman Hazel Crampton-Hays said Monday. “She simply instructed her team to purchase as many available tests as possible to meet the tremendous need across the state, and they did exactly that to keep New Yorkers safe.”

“As we have always said, campaign donations do not have any influence on government decisions and we reject any implication otherwise,” she added.

A Tebele spokesman claimed that the emails proved nothing improper happened despite Tebele raising the testing issue to the administration for which he was raising funds.

“These exchanges prove what we have been stating from the outset: neither Mr. Tebele nor the company communicated in any way with the governor or the campaign about COVID tests,” the rep said.”

“Digital Gadgets only learned of the State’s testing needs from New York Times reporting on December 16th, 2021, which is the date of the first time that Digital Gadgets’ ability to sell tests was communicated to the State.”