California officials are defending their decision to recommend parole for a Charles Manson disciple who admitted that she would have killed babies during her 1969 murder spree.

A state official told The Post the people who made the call were “well trained” to know that convicted murderer Leslie Van Houten, 66, no longer posed a threat to society during her April 14 parole hearing.

“These two commissioners are well trained, they have gone to school for this, I suspect you have not gone to school for this, and they don’t think that she poses a threat anymore to society,” the official said Wednesday.

At that parole hearing, Presiding Commissioner Ali Zarrinnam asked Van Houten, “You would have done anything at this point, right? If there were babies in the home, would you have killed babies, newborns, toddlers?”

Van Houten retorted: “I think I would have if he’d have said,” referring to Manson, according to the 210-page parole board transcript exclusively obtained by The Post.

The gray-haired prisoner never recanted or took responsibility for her shocking statement, saying instead that she had “surrendered completely, morally, ethically” to Manson.

Asked why the parole commissioner never pressed her on her jaw-dropping statement, the state official declined to comment.

Still, parole officials have paved the way for Van Houten to be released from the California Institution for Women in Chino, Calif.

They have 120 days to review the commissioners’ decision before it likely gets kicked up to the governor’s office.

Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to have the final say on whether Van Houten will be released.

“If the grant reaches us, the governor will carefully review the case,” said Brown’s spokeswoman, Deborah Hoffman.

Van Houten was convicted in 1971 for the brutal stabbing murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their Los Angeles home in August 1969.

She was initially given the death penalty, but her sentence was later commuted when California temporarily abolished capital punishment.