FBI Forms Director’s Advisory Team to Review Past Trump Investigations

The FBI has assembled a team of agents to review internal documents and other government materials linked to past investigations of the president and his associates, according to a report. The group, known internally as the Director’s Advisory Team, was launched last year.

A senior FBI official denied that any unit called the “payback squad” exists but confirmed the advisory team’s creation to expose and discredit federal law enforcement officials involved in those earlier inquiries. The Director’s Advisory Team was previously identified by members of Congress.

The team now appears connected to a Justice Department investigation in Florida pursuing allegations that officials sought to target the president across multiple federal inquiries conducted over more than a decade. A top federal prosecutor has issued more than 100 subpoenas in the case, which involves personnel appointed by the current administration and is proceeding in a Florida district overseen by judges appointed by the president.

In October a grand jury notice indicated the Justice Department would examine the FBI raid at the president’s Mar-a-Lago compound and related actions described by allies as part of a broader effort against him.

The president has repeatedly described those findings as a hoax and a witch hunt. One month after the grand jury notice, a meeting of major crimes investigators was convened in the Southern District of Florida following the resignation of two top prosecutors over the handling of the matter.

A court document matching the description of the grand jury proceeding appeared on the south Florida court website with a start date of January 12, 2026. The order does not specify the exact scope of the jury’s inquiry. Charges in the matter could still be months away.

An 81-year-old former U.S. attorney who previously represented the president during his 2020 campaign and the Russia investigation now holds the title of counselor to the attorney general and is leading the probe. A career prosecutor was removed from the case after allegedly resisting pressure to bring charges quickly against a former CIA director.

Also assigned is a former clerk to the district judge who dismissed the classified-documents case at Mar-a-Lago; that judge was appointed by the president and is the sole judge in the Ft. Pierce division where much of the current inquiry is occurring.

The attorney general was replaced after the president reportedly concluded the predecessor had not moved quickly enough to prosecute critics. The FBI director has faced separate allegations regarding personal conduct, which he has denied, and has agreed to undergo an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test.