Verdict was dire for the Republican frontrunner, but more shocking than that was how unshockable the US has become

A mystery of Donald Trump’s US presidency was the absence of a major sex scandal. The thrice-married billionaire who boasted on Access Hollywood that women let him “grab ’em by the pussy’” seemed to commit every abuse of power except the kind that nearly brought down Bill Clinton.

Trump’s effort to regain the White House, however, must confront a different reality: he is now a legally defined as a sexual predator.