Far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker filed a $72.5 million defamation lawsuit against CNN commentator Scott Jennings in federal court on Tuesday, accusing the pundit of airing a manipulated video and falsely portraying him as advocating the lynching of Black Americans.
The 38-page complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, centers on an August 11 episode of Salem Media’s The Scott Jennings Show and social media posts with clips.
Jennings played an edited clip of Piker and told listeners that the streamer was “out there calling for Black voters to be lynched” and referenced “the Piker plan of returning our country to lynchings.”
In another post, he wrote that Abdul El-Sayed’s “best pal and campaign partner says the USA should resume lynchings against black people.”
Piker is seeking at least $27.5 million in compensatory damages, $45 million in punitive damages, and a jury trial.
The footage comes from a 2024 livestream, during which Piker reacted to a debate between two Black political commentators on criminal justice policy.
According to the complaint, Piker was sarcastically mocking a conservative participant who had criticized progressive prosecutors and “woke DAs.”
Laughing, Piker said something to the effect of “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.’”
The lawsuit alleges that the version Jennings aired was a roughly 42-second compilation drawn from multiple streams, cropped and rearranged to omit the words “He said” and the surrounding sarcasm that made clear Piker was attributing the remarks to someone else rather than endorsing them.
Jennings then added a caption presenting the line as a direct quote from Piker: “LET’S GO BACK TO A BETTER TIME WHEN LYNCHINGS WERE HAPPENING.”
The complaint states that Jennings “did not merely mischaracterize something Mr. Piker said. 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.”
Piker’s attorneys argue that the statements were presented as factual assertions about what he said rather than rhetorical commentary, and that Jennings ignored a prior request for a retraction.
The suit alleges defamation per se, defamation by implication, and false light, arguing that the accusations damaged Piker’s reputation, threatened his streaming income and sponsorships, and caused emotional distress.
As of Tuesday evening, Jennings had not publicly responded to the lawsuit. He had also not deleted the posts.
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