Megan Basham

Yeah, he's built one of the largest online political audiences, John, especially among younger progressive voters.

He's got over 3 million followers on Twitch, another 2 million on YouTube.

So a really sizable audience.

And he's an open Marxist.

Yeah.

He calls himself a socialist, and he's actually called for capitalist blood to run in the streets.

He's also joked about assassinating Donald Trump, saying someone's got to do it.

He's overall very heavily critical of the United States and Israel.

He has called the documented sexual violence that was a part of Hamas's attacks on October 7th a rape fantasy.

So I would say that it's very fair to characterize him as a left-wing extremist.

And recently, there's been a lot of controversy over legacy media like The New York Times trying to legitimize Hasan Piker by platforming him as a normal political commentator without mentioning these extreme views.

Well, the focus of this federal probe is tied to a trip he took to Cuba in March alongside activists affiliated with the so-called Nuestra America Convoy.

Now, that's a coalition that openly supports the communist Cuban regime.

And on his program, Piker openly said that the Cuban government contacted him.

So the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued subpoenas, or what they called requests for information, connected to whether U.S.

sanction laws may have been violated on this trip.

They also subpoenaed, you know, other well-known left-wing activists like Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin over that same trip.

And investigators are reportedly looking into finances, logistics, communications.

really just any way they can try to figure out if American activists coordinated with sanctioned Cuban entities or officials.

So this investigation is part of a broader effort by officials to try to control malign foreign influence that's operating in the U.S., particularly tied to support for political violence, extremist movements, and what the government would classify as terrorism.