Thomas Binger

Thomas C. Binger is an American lawyer and government official who currently serves as the Assistant District Attorney for Walworth County, Wisconsin. Binger previously served as Assistant District Attorney for Kenosha County from 2014 to 2024. He was raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he attended the local Washington High School. He served as the lead prosecutor in the 2021 trial of Kyle Rittenhouse following the 2020 Kenosha unrest shooting, which ended in Rittenhouse's acquittal. Following the 2024 election of Republican candidate Xavier Solis to Kenosha County District Attorney, Thomas Binger is no longer employed by the office. Following this, he became the Assistant District Attorney for Walworth County, Wisconsin in 2025.

Early life and education Binger is a native of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He attended Washington High School in Sioux Falls. While in high school, he competed nationally as a member of the high school's debate team, earning 4th place in a national debate competition alongside his debate partner.

Legal career Between 1999 and 2005, Binger worked for the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office as a prosecutor. The Supreme Court unanimously agreed with his argument that a biological father who has not yet been adjudicated as the father of a child may nonetheless have his parental rights termination for abandonment of the child prior to adjudication. In 2005, Binger began working in private practice at DeMark, Kolbe & Brodek S.C., where he focused on civil litigation. In 2008, he won a $540,000 jury verdict for a local developer. He joined the Kenosha County District Attorney's Office in 2014. In 2015, he served as a prosecutor in the murder trial of Chester Mass, who was accused of murdering his girlfriend. The trial resulted in the conviction of Mass on charges of first-degree intentional homicide. He was an Assistant District Attorney for Kenosha County until 2025. In 2025 he became an ADA for Walworth County. Binger filed charges against Circle Internet Group in 2026, seeking to hold the company in criminal contempt for failing to obey a court order requiring the company to recover the property of a victim of digital asset theft. State v. Rittenhouse

Binger served as the lead prosecutor in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse following the Kenosha unrest shooting in which Rittenhouse shot three individuals.

Hearings held prior to the start of the trial showed a contentious atmosphere between Binger and Wisconsin circuit court judge Bruce Schroeder, who presided over the criminal case. In a separate pre-trial hearing that took place in October 2021, Schroeder ordered Binger to refrain from referring to witnesses as "victims", drawing ire from Binger.

Schroeder and Binger would continue to clash multiple times throughout the trial itself. Binger drew sharp criticism from Schroeder for his line of questioning directed towards Rittenhouse; Schroeder deemed a portion of the cross-examination of the defendant that challenged the motivation for Rittenhouse's post-arrest silence to be a "grave constitutional violation", referring to the right to remain silent guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, and admonished Binger for bringing up aspects of a prior incident involving Rittenhouse that had been previously ruled inadmissible. Three days later, Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges by the jury. The following month, Binger publicly commented on the case in an in depth interview with the New York State Bar Association's "Miranda Warnings" podcast.

Political career In 2016, while working as a Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney, Binger unsuccessfully ran for the office of the Racine County District Attorney. His Republican opponent, Tricia Hanson, announced her candidacy the following day.

Financing for Binger's campaign came largely from lawyers and political committees. He received financial support from local affiliates of the Democratic Party, a United Auto Workers–affiliated PAC, as well as the campaign of then-Wisconsin state representative Cory Mason. He also financed his campaign with a ten-thousand dollar loan from himself, as well as donations from other individual and group donors.

Binger lost the election to Hanson; Binger earned 36,988 votes while Hanson earned 51,074 votes.

Personal life As of 2016, Binger was a resident of Caledonia, Wisconsin, and had lived in Racine County for over ten years.

As of November 2021, Binger has had two children with Nicole Gustafson-Binger, a mental health counselor, and one child from a previous marriage.