Hasan Piker files $72.5 million defamation suit against Scott Jennings

Progressive pundit Hasan Piker has filed a $72.5 million defamation lawsuit against conservative commentator Scott Jennings, claiming Jennings deliberately distorted his remarks to falsely portray him as a supporter of lynching Black people. Piker, in a 38-page complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., said Jennings defamed him on an Aug. 11 episode of “The Scott Jennings Show” when he played video from a 2024 livestream of Piker’s show that had been doctored. “Mr. Jennings did not merely mischaracterize something Mr. Piker said,” the complaint says. “He took a false, fabricated, and manipulated video of Mr. Piker, added a made-up quotation that Mr. Piker never uttered, and then made accusations that went beyond even what the manipulated footage purported to show.” Jennings, who is also a CNN commentator, described Piker on the broadcast as a “radical socialist streamer” and Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s “best friend” who has been “calling for Black voters to be lynched.” “Listen for yourself and understand what the socialists have in store for the black community,” Jennings posted. “Mr. Piker has never advocated the lynching of Black Americans, or anyone else,” the complaint says. “He has never called for a return to lynchings. And he has never proposed anything remotely resembling the supposed plan that Mr. Jennings falsely attributed to him.” Jennings did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the complaint, Piker’s legal team says it sent a written demand to Jennings’ lawyers in August that they issue a retraction. Jennings’ legal team acknowledged it received the letter and said a response would follow, but no “substantive response” has been issued, the complaint says. As of Wednesday, Jennings’ post including the disputed video was still on X and had racked up 3 million views. Piker’s legal team also suggests in the complaint that in addition to undermining El-Sayed’s support among Black voters in Michigan, Jennings had a “professional and political incentive” to smear Piker. “In the weeks surrounding the publications, Mr. Jennings was publicly reported to be under consideration for the position of White House Press Secretary,” the complaint says. Piker, who is seeking $27.5 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages, is a social media maven with more than 3.1 million Twitch followers, 2 million YouTube subscribers and roughly 1.9 million followers on Instagram. While Piker has campaigned on behalf of several Democratic candidates, he remains a controversial figure in the party, and several Jewish organizations have accused him of promoting antisemitic tropes and downplaying the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. In the complaint, Piker alleges that the video Jennings aired combined video from three separate Twitch livestreams and rearranged the sequence of his remarks. Also, it says, the video shows Piker making sarcastic remarks about going back “to a better time when lynchings were happening.” But the makers of the video edited out the Oct. 29, 2024, YouTube debate between two Black political commentators — one liberal, the other conservative — that Piker was reacting to. After a clip of the conservative commentator blaming “woke DAs” for policies that harm Black people ran, the complaint says, Piker responded: “He said, ‘We need more Klansmen, okay? Can we go back to a better time when lynchings were happening? This is what I like as a Black man. Also, there’s no real racism in America.’ My man said, ‘woke DAs,’ dude. What are you saying?” That clip was taken out of context and presented on Jennings’ show with the caption “PIKER: ‘LET’S GO BACK TO A BETTER TIME WHEN LYNCHINGS WERE HAPPENING,’” which the complaint says Piker never said. “Mr. Piker was mocking the conservative commentator’s statement,” the complaint says. “Mr. Piker obviously was not expressing support for the Ku Klux Klan, lynching, or racial discrimination.” Daniel Watkins, an attorney for Piker, told NBC News that what Jennings presented was “a lie.” “There is something especially disgraceful about exploiting this country’s history of racial terror to destroy another man’s reputation,” Watkins said. “Scott Jennings has every right to disagree with Hasan Piker. He has no right to invent what Hasan said.”