According to the LA Times, right after Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy for Governor, the publishers of the National Enquirer bought off a woman who claimed to have had an affair with the future Governor.

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 Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, signed a friend of the woman to a similar contract about the alleged relationship for $1,000.

American Media’s contract with Gigi Goyette of Malibu is dated Aug. 8, 2003, two days after Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy on a late-night talk show. Under the agreement, Goyette must disclose to no one but American Media any information about her “interactions” with Schwarzenegger.

American Media never solicited further information from Goyette or her friend, Judy Mora, also of Malibu, both women said. The Enquirer had published a cover story two years earlier describing an alleged seven-year sexual relationship between Goyette and Schwarzenegger during his marriage to Maria Shriver, California’s first lady.

You may remember American Media better as the publishers of American Muscle and Fitness, one of the magazines paying Arnie millions of dollars to be executive editor.

And you may remember American Muscle and Fitness better as the magazine that depends heavily on advertisements from the makers of performance enhancing substances, whom the governor protected by vetoing a ban on their product.

This smells to me less like a strongarm by Schwarzenegger, and more like a company eager to protect its marketing assets. But at this point, I’d believe anything of Arnie.