Hasan Piker Hits Scott Jennings With $72.5 Million Defamation Suit Over Black Lynching Accusations

Left-wing streaming personality Hasan Piker sued conservative commentator Scott Jennings on Tuesday, seeking at least $72.5 million over accusations that he supported lynching black Americans.

The complaint, filed October 27 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requests at least $27.5 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages. Piker also demanded a jury trial.

The lawsuit concerns an August 11 broadcast of The Scott Jennings Show and subsequent social media posts. Piker alleges that Jennings used edited livestream footage and added a fabricated quotation to portray sarcastic remarks as support for racial violence. The complaint says:

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The dispute stems partly from an October 29, 2024, Twitch broadcast in which Piker watched two black political commentators debate criminal justice policy.

According to the filing, Piker mocked the conservative participant’s criticism of “woke DAs” by sarcastically portraying him as nostalgic for the era before the civil rights movement. His lawyers say the surrounding discussion, laughter, and audience reactions showed that he was criticizing those views.

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Jennings played that compilation and added a caption attributing this statement to Piker: “LET’S GO BACK TO A BETTER TIME WHEN LYNCHINGS WERE HAPPENING.”

Piker’s lawyers say that wording appeared in neither the original recording nor the edited compilation. They allege Jennings changed a sarcastic question into a declaration.

Afterward, Jennings accused Piker of “calling for Black voters to be lynched” and referred to “the Piker plan of returning our country to lynchings,” according to the filing.

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