Corruption in DC is unprecedented. I’m a former federal prosecutor ready to take it on | Opinion

I didn’t plan on running for Congress. I planned on being a federal prosecutor for the rest of my career.

I grew up in Lexington. My family has been in Kentucky since the 1700s — farmers, working people, and folks who believed that if you worked hard and played by the rules, this country would work for you. I believed that too. It’s why I became a Navy JAG officer, serving on active duty for over four years. It’s why I taught eighth grade in the Mississippi Delta. And it’s why I spent years in federal courtrooms prosecuting the people who betrayed the public’s trust — dirty cops, corrupt officials, and powerful people who thought the rules didn’t apply to them.

Fighting corruption meant everything to me and it was my life’s calling.

But last year, I watched the institution I devoted my career to — the Department of Justice — get turned into a political weapon — dropping corruption charges for the right friends, bringing bogus charges for political retribution, and turning an institution designed to serve the people into the president’s personal law firm. I swore four oaths to the U.S. Constitution, and DOJ’s leadership was clearly violating that oath. So I resigned.

It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made in my life. I loved working at the DOJ and loved my colleagues, many of whom continue an important mission under incredibly difficult circumstances. I met my amazing wife on my very first day at the Department of Justice — what happens to the Department is personal to me. But when you’ve spent your career telling crime victims that justice matters and that the rich and powerful shouldn’t win out over the rest of us, you don’t get to look the other way when it’s inconvenient.

What was even harder was figuring out what came next after a lifetime of nonpartisan public service. And the more I looked at the congressional race here — at what’s happening in Washington, at what’s happening to working families right here in Central Kentucky — the clearer it became. The fight didn’t end when I left the DOJ. It just shifted.

Here’s what I know after years of prosecuting corruption: it doesn’t fix itself. The corrupt don’t get shamed into stopping; the whole reason they’re abusing our trust in the first place is because they’re shameless. The only way to stop them is to hold them accountable — and right now, not enough people in Washington are doing that.

The administration hands out favors to billionaires while cutting Medicaid for Kentucky families. The president’s family and friends make billions of dollars off of public money – money you and I paid in taxes. But it’s more than just this administration and has been for years. Members of Congress trade stocks on insider information or go on to cushy lobbying jobs. Scandals seem to come out every day, like the ones involving Eric Swalwell who’s accused of engaging in inappropriate, and possibly criminal, sexual behavior with staffers, and Tony Gonzales, who admitted to having an affair with a staffer.

Instead of addressing these issues and policing themselves, career politicians like Congressman Andy Barr have long ago given up serving us and instead focused entirely on sucking up to the president to climb the political ladder. We need something different — a new face and new leadership in DC — and bold solutions to address the problems everyday Kentuckians face. That means someone with the courage to lower prices by standing up to corporations fixing prices against us and ending this disastrous trade war, force ICE to adhere to the same standards the rest of our law enforcement is bound by, and protect the institutions that have kept American democracy so enduring to this point, like establishing an independent DOJ.

I’m running because Central Kentucky deserves someone who has actually fought corruption — not just talked about fighting it — and who proved before asking for a single vote that they weren’t willing to stay silent when it mattered most. I gave up a job I loved to make that point. I’d do it again.

Now I’m asking you to let me keep fighting for you, as I’ve done my entire career, just from a different seat. Let’s clean up D.C. together.

Zach Dembo is a Democratic candidate for Kentucky’s Sixth District in the U.S. House.