Hanky Panky

From the LAT:

Days after Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped into the race for governor and girded for questions about his past, a tabloid publisher wooing him for a business deal promised to pay a woman $20,000 to sign a confidentiality agreement about an alleged affair with the candidate.[...]

American Media, which did not respond to repeated requests for comment, reached its agreement with Schwarzenegger on Nov. 15, 2003, two days before he was sworn in as governor. The deal was to pay him, by the company's estimates, at least $8 million over five years and no less than $5 million.

Schwarzenegger dropped the contract last month after the arrangement was made public in the Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee. He said he plans to continue writing a monthly column for the two magazines.

American Media's contracts with Goyette and Mora, both titled "Confidentiality Agreement," are two pages long and never expire; they bind the two women "in perpetuity."

What stinks here is not the affair, but that he let a business entity pay for the woman's silence while he was negotiating with the same entity for a consulting contract, a contract which in turn could have influenced him to push legislation that benefited the same business entity.

The Governuh is on vacation. His communications director said "he believed Schwarzenegger did not know" about the transaction. That stretches credulity. If this wasn't meant to be a tit for tat deal, why didn't the magazine pursue the story and publish it?

The media better ask Ahnold directly and get him on record.

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