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Washington (CNN) Former President Donald Trump flouted the limits of presidential power unlike any of his recent predecessors, leaving behind a legacy of unmatched abuses that range from violations of longstanding norms to potentially criminal behavior. It was hard to keep track amid the daily deluge of controversial tweets and distractions that were a hallmark of the Trump presidency. And some of the most egregious abuses of power weren't clear at the time but came into focus after exhaustive investigations. To chronicle Trump's most consequential abuses of power, CNN spoke with a politically diverse group of constitutional scholars, presidential historians and experts on democratic institutions. While these 16 experts did not agree on everything, there was consensus that Trump's pattern of abusing his powers for personal or political gain reached an alarming level that hasn't been seen in modern history, and will have long-lasting consequences for the future of American democracy. Here is a breakdown of Trump's 10 most significant abuses of power. #1: Subverting the 2020 election "Nothing remotely compares to this," said Akhil Amar of Yale Law School, who is among the most-cited constitutional scholars in the country. "His actions since the election have threatened the very existence of our constitutional democracy. This looms large in the history of not just this administration, but the history of America. This is what history will remember most harshly." Along the way, the Trump administration dragged its feet on the formal transition of power, which was delayed for weeks while Trump refused to acknowledge defeat. Biden said his team was met with "obstruction" from Trump appointees at the Pentagon and White House. Trump's efforts to undermine the transition are unprecedented in modern American history, the experts said. "Trump has put more pressure on the integrity of the election process than any individual in modern American history. There has never been anything on this scale," said Rick Hasen, a former CNN analyst and election law expert who teaches at the University of California, Irvine. #2: Inciting an insurrection Trump's attempts to cling to power reached a horrifying crescendo on January 6, when he incited a large gathering of supporters in Washington to attack the US Capitol while the electoral votes were being counted. "This in and of itself puts Trump in the lowest circle of hell among America's presidents, along with the likes of James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson," Amar said. At a rally before the attack, Trump urged supporters to march to the Capitol and "fight like hell," telling them, "You'll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength." The protests quickly transformed into a violent mob , which overran police barriers and stormed the building. The occupation was quelled after several hours of violent clashes, which led to five deaths. "It is not far-fetched to argue that he should have anticipated that his false election claims and incitement to march on the Capitol to 'stop the steal' would have devastating consequences," said Ross Garber, a Tulane Law School professor who previously defended four Republican governors that faced impeachment. Figures from both parties labeled the attack an insurrection and blamed Trump for the violence, which killed one police officer and four rioters. No US president, with the possible exception of Andrew Johnson, has ever fomented a violent uprising against lawmakers, though Trump denies responsibility. "The founders intended that the office of the president be held by people with sufficient virtue," said Franita Tolson, a constitutional law professor at the University of Southern California. "They recognized the risk of someone who is a tyrant abusing the office, but they didn't build a system to prevent it. The question is, will we learn from this, and alter our Constitution to prevent this from happening again?" #3: Abusing the bully pulpit Many of the experts pointed to Trump's inflammatory and divisive rhetoric as a stark abuse of power, albeit not criminal, and probably not impeachable either. But they said Trump abused the bully pulpit by using his platform to brazenly spread lies and conspiracies, attack political opponents of all stripes, and praise bad actors like white nationalists and authoritarian leaders. CNN and other news outlets fact-checked thousands of lies that Trump told during his tenure, far surpassing the cherry-picked political spin or occasional whoppers told by past presidents. "Trump abused the bully pulpit to intimidate witnesses, literally bully people and spread disinformation. It's never been done on the scale that he did it," said Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina who testified as a Democratic witness in favor of impeachment in 2019 Many of Trump's comments debased the public discourse and were blatantly racist or fanned the flames of existing divisions. Others were detrimental to public health. Last year, he often downplayed the risks of Covid-19 and promoted unproven treatments. The experts said these were shameful misuses of his bully pulpit that literally put Americans in danger. Larry Diamond, an expert on democratic governance at the Hoover Institution, said Trump "has massive responsibility for creating the normative atmosphere in which extremism, hatred, racial bigotry and violent imagery have prospered and metastasized." Diamond noted Trump's refusal to condemn white supremacists at the 2017 Charlottesville rally to his praising of QAnon in late 2020. "The amount of lies that came out of this presidency was corrosive to our political culture," said Joe Goldman, president of the Democracy Fund, a nonpartisan foundation that studies voter attitudes toward democratic institutions and works to strengthen democracy. "In theory, you could pass new laws to address many of the norm violations we saw under Trump. But earning back people's trust is much harder to do." #4: Politicizing the Justice Department Trump politicized the Justice Department and FBI from the very start of his presidency until the final days. He repeatedly crossed lines and violated norms that have been in place since Watergate to create independence between the White House and federal law enforcement. "It's extremely important for the integrity of American democracy that the president cannot manipulate law enforcement for partisan, political, self-interested preferences," said Rick Pildes, a former CNN legal analyst who teaches at New York University. "Trump constantly agitated to eliminate the boundaries between a President and the DOJ, which was incredibly disturbing." During his four years, Trump publicly urged the FBI to investigate more than two dozen of his perceived opponents, including several Democratic lawmakers, some of the prosecutors and FBI officials involved in the Russia investigation, Biden's son Hunter Biden, the tech company Google, and even the author of the infamous 2018 "anonymous" op-ed in The New York Times. While most of these abuses were rhetorical in nature, he took some overt actions that triggered scrutiny from criminal investigators, like his 2017 firing of then-FBI Director James Comey, which led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election. "By politicizing (the Justice Department) now, and frankly by engaging in a lot of conduct that appears to be illegal, President Trump undermined the ability of the department to proceed in a clear way going forward," said Lisa Manheim, a University of Washington law professor who specializes in constitutional issues and co-wrote a 2018 book about the limits of presidential power. #5: Obstructing the Mueller investigation The Mueller investigation dominated the first three years of Trump's presidency. Angry over an investigation that he felt was illegitimate, Trump repeatedly lashed out at Mueller and took steps to undermine and obstruct the sprawling criminal probe. Mueller investigated 10 episodes and found persuasive evidence that Trump's actions fit the legal criteria to warrant criminal charges. But Mueller decided not to make an up-or-down decision on whether to charge Trump, citing Justice Department rules against indicting a sitting president and the difficult constitutional questions that would make for a challenging prosecution. Instead, Mueller famously said , "If we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." Mueller's cryptic refusal to clear Trump's name was quickly washed away by Trump's often-repeated lie that Mueller gave him "total and complete exoneration," a false claim he and his allies parroted dozens of times. "The offenses in the Mueller report make a powerful and overwhelming case for obstruction of justice and political corruption," said Paulsen, the conservative legal scholar. "To some extent, it was criminal. To some extent, it was non-criminal corruption. Mueller couldn't get to the full scope because of the obstruction." The experts had mixed views on Trump's possible criminal exposure . Some said there was strong proof that Trump broke the law, while others said some of the alleged episodes of obstruction would be difficult to prosecute. Michael Zeldin, a former CNN legal analyst who previously worked for Mueller at the Justice Department, said there were one or two incidents that were strong and prosecutable obstruction crimes, including when Trump ordered his White House counsel to write a memo falsely stating that Trump never ordered him to fire Mueller. "In my view, that is a clear act of obstruction," Zeldin said. "The sole intention was to interfere with the investigation. There is no other explanation for it."