brokered by people from the united ar united arab emirates. so you have more than one taking place and some of these during the transition. the fact is, you know, all administrations, democrats and republicans will do back channel negotiations. it was actually a back channel negotiation with iran that led to the iran nuclear negotiations. the thing is, one, you want to keep it secret if it is meant to be a secret back channel. two, you wait until you are president as opposed to during the transition period and that's raised some objections about this idea one president at a time. were things being offered? were discussions being had before trump was president about possible changes in u.s. policy with regards to russia? that's the question. we don't know the answer to that question. but we do know there were more contacts than we knew of before. >> this is just part of the