Arnold Schwarzenegger dragged into Trump hush money trial as tabloid boss reveals plan to buy damaging stories

The tabloid publisher behind a “catch and kill” scheme to bury compromising stories aboutDonald Trump testified in court that he previously had a similar arrangement with Hollywood actor turned ex-governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger.

David Pecker, the former publisher of tabloid giant National Enquirer, is testifying for the third day of the former president’s historic criminal trial.

In his testimony, Mr Pecker has told the court about his alleged agreement with Mr Trump and his former attorney Michael Cohen to “kill” stories about the then-presidential candidate’s alleged affairs in order to boost his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election.

Adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal both claimed to have had affairs with the Mr Trump, who allegedly used Mr Pecker to buy the rights to their stories only to ensure they’d never be published.

On Thursday, Mr Pecker explained why he was skeptical to buy up politically linked stories – and in doing so revealed a similar plan not to publish negative stories about Schwarzenegger.

The former tabloid boss set the scene back to 2002, when health and fitness publications run by bodybuilder-turned-publisher Joe Weider went up for sale.

With Mr Pecker’s American Media poised to take up those titles, Schwarzenegger asked Mr Pecker to name him an editor-at-large of the publications, according to Mr Pecker’s testimony.

Mr Pecker claimed that Schwarzenegger also wanted an “agreement” regarding the tabloids Globe and National Enquirer.

“I’ve had a number of litigation and lawsuits in both magazines because you always run negative stories about me,” Mr Pecker recalled Schwarzenegger saying.

“I plan on running for governor and I would like