Scott Jennings asks court to dismiss Hasan Piker’s $72.5 million defamation lawsuit

Kentuckian and conservative political commentator Scott Jennings is asking a federal court to dismiss a $72.5 million defamation lawsuit against him from progressive Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. 

Attorneys for Jennings filed the motion Tuesday arguing Piker’s initial complaint fails to state a claim. 

“Specifically, he fails to plausibly plead either that Mr. Jennings acted with actual malice, or that the alleged defamatory statements are actionable,” the motion says. 

Last month, Piker’s attorneys filed a complaint in federal court in Washington, D.C. and alleged Jennings “falsely told a nationwide podcast audience that Hasan Piker was ‘out there calling for Black voters to be lynched.’” The claims stem from an edited video Jennings shared on his show and on social media in August.

“Mr. Jennings’ filing today puts great trust in the US Constitution, the truth, and the right of Americans to speak… even if Mr Piker doesn’t like what they have to say,” said Benjamin G. Chew, one of Jennings’ attorneys. 

Jennings’ motion says the footage in the video he shared came from an X account belonging to Senate Republicans, @NRSC. It also says Jennings “did not create, edit, or manipulate and had no reason to doubt based on the source of the video and the totality of what is known about Mr. Piker’s general worldview—was defamatory, as was Mr. Jennings’s accompanying commentary.”

A Snopes review  from August of the video the Senate Republicans shared found that Piker was sarcastically mimicking others’ opinions and the clips were from hours-long streams and heavily edited without full context. 

Jennings, who now frequently appears on CNN to discuss Republican politics, is a former staffer of Kentucky U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and a founding partner of RunSwitch PR, one of Kentucky’s largest public relations firms.