Hacked email: Clinton miffed by Pelosi's 'non-answer'?

WASHINGTON (AP) — A hacked email released by WikiLeaks on Sunday suggests Hillary Clinton was miffed by Nancy Pelosi's initial refusal to endorse her during the Democratic presidential primary.

Clinton aide Huma Abedin noted in a July 16, 2015, email to a list of people including campaign Chairman John Podesta that Clinton had asked for the House Democratic leader's endorsement over Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Pelosi "didn't say yes," Abedin wrote. "HRC said she felt it was a non-answer." Abedin suggested that she or Podesta call Pelosi's top aide "to see what the deal is but she wasn't prepared for that answer," according to the email.

It's not unusual for party leaders to avoid taking sides in primaries. Sanders — and Pelosi — ultimately endorsed Clinton.

The email was among about 2,000 messages published Sunday by WikiLeaks. The emails were hacked from Podesta's private account.

The U.S. government has said the Russian government was responsible for the hack, although WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said that no government or any other state parties had given the stolen emails to his organization. He offered no evidence to support his denials, and the wording of his statement did not rule out the possibility that the emails were obtained by a state actor and then provided to another party who then passed them to WikiLeaks.

It is impossible to authenticate each hacked email that WikiLeaks has published, but Democrats have openly acknowledged they were hacked and have not pointed to any specific case where an email was altered to inflict political damage.

Also released Sunday was an email from Hillary Clinton's spokesman Robby Mook to Podesta, in which Mook waved a cautionary flag about another Clinton insider who could be seen as an ethically questionable connection between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation.

In the March 11, 2015, email, Mook writes of Clinton Foundation donor Jose Villarreal that "it looks like he's snared up in the conflict of interest stuff at State....not the WORST thing in the world, but there's a real argument here that he was at the nexus of foundation/state issues."

Mook adds: "Mostly trumped up, but I'd question if we want him as an officer." It's not clear what kind of "officer" Mook is referring to.

Mook goes on to note that as secretary of state, Clinton "took advantage of her financial networks and corporate connections to raise over $72 million from 66 corporations for the United States Pavilion at the World's Fair in Shanghai in 2010."

Villareal was selected to be the commissioner general of the U.S. Expo in Shanghai.

Some of the corporations involved in the exhibit also contributed to the Clinton Foundation and received favorable treatment from the State Department, Mook's email says. Those corporations included Proctor & Gamble, Boeing and General Electric.