Powell respectfully declined.

“JB would want me to comment on the $485m issue,” he wrote, referring to the amount of state funding Cuomo had sought to shift to New York City. “To do this puts me into the middle of a DeBlasio/Cuomo fight. It politicizes my role. I am now a Virginia resident. No can do.”

The exchange was part of a trove of hacked emails, posted online in September, that revealed Powell’s unvarnished thoughts on Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and other Washington power players.

Still, the emails largely showed the depth of Powell’s devotion to City College, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in geology in 1958.

Powell has credited the school with lifting him out of his immigrant upbringing in Harlem and the South Bronx and introducing him to the military through the Reserve Officer Training Corps and the Pershing Rifles. The school eventually honored him with a school named in his honor, despite what Powell said was a “straight ‘C’ average” during his time there.

“My professors are rolling over in their graves,” he said in 2012.

City College first established the Colin Powell Center in 1997 as a small think-tank. It grew in the last decade, bolstered by Powell’s reputation and his penchant for helping aggressively raise money on its behalf.

In 2006, New York Life insurance company gave $10 million to expand a new African-American initiative. The Skadden, Arps law firm gave another $10 million in 2008.

The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership was eventually established as a fully-fledged school in 2013, and now numbers 3,000 students and accounts for one-third of City College’s annual graduates.

It has been a bright spot for the City University of New York, amid chronic budget shortages that have forced it to slash spending across schools, and at City College in particular. Last week, Coico, who had served as president of City College since 2010, unexpectedly resigned after reports that she used university and foundation funds for personal expenses.

Powell has no fiduciary responsibility for the institution.

To bolster his namesake school, Powell has recruited a distinguished “board of visitors,” which he chairs — including three former secretaries of state, among other leaders in business and media — and he has raised tens of millions of dollars, including $6.5 million of his own money.

The school’s “really rapid growth,” said Vincent Boudreau, the school’s dean, “absolutely wouldn’t have been possible without General Powell’s support and advocacy.”

In several of the leaked emails, Powell recounts wrangling contributions from his impressive list of contacts, including Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, casino operator Steve Wynn, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.

In October 2014, under subject line “Goldman-Sachs dinner for IMF/World bank,” Powell recounted pitching the school at an unrelated dinner.

“Nice dinner at John Rogers house,” he wrote. “Lloyd Blankfein and Gary Cohn were there. I sat with Lloyd. I gave the concluding set of remarks (without warning.) I got them all interested in the Powell School again. I invited Lloyd and Gary to visit. Lloyd also wanted to explore sending a couple of students down to GS for a visit/tour (larger groups later.)”

(A rep for the investment bank declined to comment on Blankfein’s involvement, but said one of the company’s charitable initiatives had donated to the school. Blankfein is not listed on the 2014-15 annual report.)

Forwarding a note from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Scott Sandell to Milliken and Boudreau, he added, “Scott is a great guy and this address list is all of Silicon Valley.” Milliken replied, “Thanks General. I will make use of this.”

Powell also advised Coico and Boudreau to solicit money from Charles and David Koch, after another CUNY college had reportedly refused a $10 million donation.

“Guys, Did I see an article recently where Brooklyn College turned down at $10m gift from the Kochs? What’s the story? You know why I am asking. :)” he wrote in June 2014.

“Turns out it was a 10,000 gift that the faculty objected to,” Coico replied. “I heard this story from one of my alums who is David Koch’s neighbor in the Hamptons. The NY Post got it wrong. As you know, we received $50,000 from David Koch last year..”

“Yes, I remember the 50k. And would it be a problem if we went back for more?” Powell asked.

“I think we should go back for more,” she replied. (David Koch is listed on the report as having given under $500,000.)

On Feb. 2, 2015, Powell shared several notes from “Alfalfa weekend,” apparently referring to the Alfalfa Club, which holds a dinner in Washington every January.

“Saw David Koch. Will send him one of my letter packages. He immediately gave me a card with his address. Any problem with another donation from him?” Powell asked. “Saw Bloomberg and updated him. Invited him again, also Lauder and Rubenstein. … John Rogers of GS will chase down Lloyd. John also promised another personal contribution.”

Powell was also consulted on other aspects of the school’s growth, including in May 2015 when the school faced cost-overruns and delays on a brownstone on 141st Street that it intended to renovate to serve as a school headquarters.

In an email, Boudreau described his frustrations with the pace of the project, complaining that the construction contract had been delayed, and that cost estimate had been revised upward.

“Time to ask if we really need this building,” Powell replied then.

Ultimately, the school decided it did not, Boudreau said in an interview.

Boudreau said Powell “doesn’t micromanage course offerings or program developments or all of that. But he has been for the very beginning enthusiastic about building something at City College that would both reflect his own legacy but help build on our campus the kind of support he feels he got when he was a student here.”

The emails show Powell also kept a watchful eye on coverage of the university.

“I had heard they were after Lisa,” he wrote in May, presaging a series of stories in the New York Times that led to the Coico’s sudden resignation as president on Friday. In July — after the first of those stories broke — Powell wrote to Milliken that he was “curious about the NYT piece.”

Milliken replied he’d rather phone. “Stranded at O’Hare and trying to get home tonight. Happy to talk anytime convenient. Reluctant to say much in email. Putin might get it and release it,” he wrote.

The two had also corresponded about an earlier Times story about CUNY’s funding woes,and how they might imperil its long-held mission of providing an affordable education.

“Today’s NYT lead story unfortunate in many respects, some because there’s of course truth to the story and others because of what it left out,” Milliken wrote Powell in May.

Powell replied that “although the story probably has mistakes and is overblown the resource argument is real. I recommend, perhaps, a piece by you correcting errors would be helpful and NYT would have to publish it. However I also think this will pass quickly.” (Milliken wrote a letter to the paper that was published a few days later.)

But Powell was reluctant to go on air to defend the school.

“I can’t do tv right now,” Powell wrote. “All they would be interested in is Trump. They’d be one question on CCNY/CUNY.”

“Let’s keep Trump and CUNY far apart!” Milliken replied.

In a phone interview with POLITICO New York, Powell said he tries to stay clear of politics.

“I’m not sure what the story was between the chancellor and the governor and the mayor,” Powell said, referring to the dispute between Cuomo and de Blasio. “It seemed to me that I ought to just stick with the school and not get into any political debate between Albany and New York City about it, so that I have them both on my side.”

Powell even cautioned Milliken about offering an appointment to President Barack Obama.

“Although I read that there are discussions with Columbia, I think CUNY is a much better spot for him!” Milliken wrote in November 2015, shortly before he sent a letter to Obama offering him an open-ended appointment.

“Great idea!” Coico replied.

“Noted. Be careful what you wish for. :)” Powell wrote, without elaborating.