ALBANY – Disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit on Tuesday arguing a state ethics body lacks the legal authority to take the $5 million he made from a controversial book deal.

The 28-page suit argues the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying In Government is not authorized to seize his literary cash because it is technically not controlled by Gov. Kathy Hochul and thus not able to exercise power over a former head of the state’s Executive Branch.

“Reflecting the Legislature’s express goal of creating an agency ‘truly independent’ of the governor, the [law] structured COELIG so as to deprive the governor of her exclusive “power of appointing, overseeing and controlling those who execute the laws,” the lawsuit, filed in Albany County Supreme Court, states.

Cuomo is asking the court to force the ethics watchdog to cease efforts to take the money ahead of a June 12 hearing on whether he improperly used state resources to pen his 2020 book “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

The book was a best-seller for Crown Publishing before a cascade of scandals toppled Cuomo from the national pedestal he enjoyed after his once-celebrated COVID-19 briefings.

News of the lawsuit was first reported Tuesday by upstate WSKG radio.

Albany Democrats created COELIG in 2022 to replace the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which was criticized for years for lacking independence from the Governor’s Office, that unsuccessfully fought Cuomo over the book deal.

“Governor Hochul pledged to restore trust in government,” Hochul spokeswoman Hazel Crampton-Hays told The Post while declining to comment on the new suit.

The new ethics agency, which declined to comment on the pending lawsuit, is now pursuing investigations that previously went nowhere under JCOPE, including a sexual misconduct probe of former state Senate Deputy Majority Jeff Klein, who has denied wrongdoing.

Cuomo has denied allegations that he improperly used state resources to make the book despite evidence that administration staffers began compiling materials for it soon after the pandemic began in spring 2020.

Staff involved in the project were volunteering, Cuomo has claimed.

Cuomo resigned in August 2021 as state lawmakers got ready to impeach and remove him from office over sexual misconduct allegations and a reported cover-up of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents as well as a plethora of other controversies including the book deal.

The ousted governor – who resigned of his own free will – now claims he was the victim of political machinations.

“The lawsuit speaks for itself, but there’s clearly been politics behind all of this,” Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said Wednesday.