Hacked emails offer a peek at Clinton’s VP list

WASHINGTON — Philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates made the list. So did Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook.

They were among nearly 40 elected officials, military leaders and corporate CEOs that Hillary Clinton’s campaign considered for vice president last spring.

The list was included among hacked emails from Clinton’s campaign chairman disclosed Tuesday by WikiLeaks.

The list emailed from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to Hillary Clinton in March included several Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tim Kaine of Virginia, who was eventually picked by Clinton.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic primary, also made the list — at the bottom.

Podesta organized the list into “rough food groups” including blacks, women and Hispanics such as Obama administration Cabinet members Julian Castro of Housing and Urban Development and Labor Secretary Tom Perez.

African-Americans who made the list included Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Besides Warren, women on the list of possibilities included Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., who is gay.

Another group of possibilities included former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Cook, Bill and Melinda Gates, Howard Schultz of Starbucks and retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen.

Months before clinching the nomination, Clinton shared an email exchange with campaign manager Robby Mook in which the two complained that thenDemocratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had hired an executive to run the Democratic National Convention without consulting the Clinton campaign or appar- ently the White House.

Mook said the campaign had advised Wasserman Schultz that “we expected to be consulted — and I was under the impression they would.”

Clinton suggested it was “too late” to do anything about the hiring. “We can’t be seen as trying to reverse this,” she wrote March 27. Clinton did not secure the nomination until June.

Previously hacked and released DNC documents revealed unflattering staff emails about the primary between Clinton and Sanders and led to Wasserman Schultz’s resignation just before the Democratic National Convention in July.

And in an email dating to early 2008, after Clinton was dealt a big loss in the Iowa caucuses, Podesta and Democratic consultant Paul Begala lamented the Clinton campaign’s performance.

“I know the fish rots from the head, but I really feel sorry for her,” Podesta wrote. “This definitely could have been won.”

Podesta sat out the 2008 campaign but ran thenSen. Barack Obama’s transition team.