Zach Dembo: I’m the KY-6 Democrat with a record of rooting out corruption
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- Zach Dembo quit the DOJ last year, citing its politicization under President Trump.
- Dembo is running in the May 19 Democratic primary for Kentucky’s 6th District.
- Dembo had raised $835,542 as of March 31 and lists a number of endorsements.
Last May, Zach Dembo says, he reluctantly quit his dream job prosecuting public corruption as an assistant U.S. attorney based in Lexington.
Dembo said he grew disgusted by Republican President Donald Trump forcing out thousands of career employees at the U.S. Department of Justice and changing the weakened agency’s focus to immigration crackdowns, prosecutions of his political adversaries and pardons for his supporters.
A massive banner featuring Trump’s scowling face soon would hang across the front of DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“When it became clear that the Trump administration had turned the DOJ into the president’s personal law firm, and it was using it to enable corruption instead of fight corruption, I felt I had no choice but to resign,” Dembo told reporters at a recent news conference in Lexington.
“That’s when I started soul-searching as to what I was going to do next to keep fighting for Kentuckians and Americans,” Dembo said.
Dembo, 40, was holding a news conference because what he decided to do next was run for Congress.
He’s a candidate in the crowded May 19 Democratic primary for Central Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District. The incumbent, seven-term Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, is running for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by the retirement of Republican Mitch McConnell.
Dembo has raised far more campaign money than other Democrats in the race — $835,542 as of March 31. Also to his advantage, he enjoys close ties to popular Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, for whom he worked as an aide during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the governor has not endorsed any Democrat ahead of the primary, several of Beshear’s former cabinet secretaries are publicly backing Dembo, including Jim Gray, who ran the Transportation Cabinet, and Mary Noble and Kerry Harvey, who led the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet at different times.
“I had no idea when I got into this whether anyone would care that someone’s running for office who’s been working behind the scenes his whole career, in the Navy or as a federal prosecutor or when I was working for Governor Beshear,” Dembo told reporters.
“But the support we’ve got has been humbling and shows that we’re the only campaign that’s going to be able to flip this seat and return some sanity to D.C. in November.”
Dembo on the issues:
- Protect democracy: Dembo says Congress must restore the United States as a global champion of democratic values. At home, he says, Trump politicized once-independent federal agencies, like the Department of Justice, to protect his supporters and persecute his critics. Abroad, he says, Trump pursues an anti-democratic foreign policy, enabling authoritarian countries like Russia that sneer at human rights.
- Restore Congress’ role in checks and balances: The Republican-led Congress did nothing while Trump attacked Venezuela and Iran, imposed expensive tariffs on imported goods and forced out hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Dembo says lawmakers must fulfill their constitutional duty of governing independently and not just defer to the president.
- Reversing what Congress has allowed to hurt working families: Dembo says Trump’s tariffs raised prices on American consumers, even if some companies are now collecting refunds, having defeated the tariffs in court. Kentucky farmers and distilleries have struggled with higher import costs. “That’s something that Congress should never have allowed to go through. They did it because the president told them to,” he says.
- Rebuild Medicaid: Trump’s 2025 tax bill meant an estimated $1.5 trillion in cuts over 10 years to Medicare and Medicaid, the federal health insurance programs for the elderly, poor and disabled. Dembo says many Kentucky families will lose their health coverage, and some rural hospitals reliant on Medicaid are likely to close to pay for Trump’s tax cuts. “You have a situation where the wealthiest 10% are getting an estimated 3% extra income.”
- Tackle congressional corruption: Congress has seen a flurry of resignations by lawmakers facing criminal or ethics scandals recently, sometimes for behavior that was an open secret among colleagues, Dembo says. “They were just protecting each other. This is a bipartisan issue,” he says. If Democrats retake the House, they must impress cynical voters by improving the ethics on Capitol Hill, including a ban on individual stock trading and prohibiting lawmakers from becoming lobbyists once they leave office.
Who is supporting Dembo’s bid?
Former Lexington mayor and Kentucky Transportation Secretary Jim Gray, former Kentucky Supreme Court justice and Kentucky Justice Secretary Mary Noble, former U.S. attorney and Kentucky Justice Secretary Kerry Harvey, Campbell Brown of Brown-Forman in Louisville, VoteVets, With Honor (focused on electing next-generation military veterans), Hold the Line PAC (focused on electing new generation of Democratic leaders), New Politics PAC (supports candidates with military or public service experience), Foreign Policy for America (former U.S. diplomats)
Why Dembo says he’s the best Democrat to flip the 6th District blue:
Dembo says his experience as a Navy officer gives him valuable foreign affairs insight, and his time at the Justice Department means he knows how to root out corruption, something the next Congress has to do.
“Corruption writ large is one of the defining issues of our time, whether we’re looking at the administration’s corruption, congressional corruption or corporate corruption,” he says. “As the only member of the Democratic side or Republican side that’s actually prosecuted corruption and taken it on, I’m ready to go after that on day one.”
“The other thing that I point out is, I’m the only person who gave up a job because of what’s going on and in order to run.”
“Some people might be running because it’s another gig, no matter what folks say. In terms of standing up for what I believe in, I’m the only person who’s resigned from a job in order to take on the administration and take on the sort of chaos and corruption that’s D.C.”
Name: Zach Dembo
Age: 40
City of residence: Lexington
Previous politics/government experience: Assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Kentucky, Lexington; aide to Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear; attorney, U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division; attorney, U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps
Professional background: Federal prosecutor, gubernatorial aide, Navy officer
Learn more: Zach Dembo for Congress. Also find him on Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram.
