brain trust vs clique

brain trust and clique both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
brain trust	Yes	No	No	No
clique	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, clique is a hypernym of brain trust; that is, clique is a word with a broader meaning than brain trust:

brain trust: an inner circle of unofficial advisors to the head of a government
clique: an exclusive circle of people with a common purpose

Other hypernyms of brain trust include camp, coterie, ingroup, inner circle, pack.

brain trust (noun)	clique (noun)
an inner circle of unofficial advisors to the head of a government	an exclusive circle of people with a common purpose