Sanford reunites with Argentine mistress

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/05/12/art.sanford0824.gi.jpg caption="South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Wednesday that he spent the weekend with his former mistress."]Washington (CNN) – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford confirmed Wednesday that he spent last weekend trying to rekindle a relationship with an Argentine woman he once called his "soul mate."

"As a matter of record, everybody in this room knows exactly who I was with over the weekend," Sanford told reporters during a press conference. "That is no mystery to anybody given what I said last summer. And you know the purpose was obviously to see if something could be restarted on that front, given the rather enormous geographic gulf between us, and time will tell, I don't know if it will or it won't."

The rendezvous was originally reported by the website Gawker after tipsters spotted Sanford and a tall brunette in the Florida Keys.

South Carolina's Attorney General decided last week that the Republican governor will not face criminal charges following an investigation into his travel and campaign expenses, a probe that started after media organizations began examining the governor's financial practices following his disclosure of the extramarital affair last June.

At Wednesday's press conference, Sanford pushed back against continued interest in his personal life, saying "[W]hat I do know is this, the obsession with one's personal life needs to come to an end."

Sanford, who is not running for re-election in November, had been considered a possible 2012 Republican presidential contender before he admitted his affair in a nationally televised statement.

In February, a judge granted a divorce to Sanford's wife, Jenny, who separated from her husband last summer.