Zach Dembo vows to fight corruption in Congress

The Democratic can­di­date for the 6^th District is a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who wants to take the fight against cor­rup­tion to Congress. Zach Dembo resigned his posi­tion as an assis­tant U.S. attor­ney because he wit­nessed first­hand the politi­ciza­tion of the Department of Justice under the admin­is­tra­tion of President Donald J. Trump. 

Now the lawyer is run­ning against Republican Ralph Alvarado of Winchester to suc­ceed long­time GOP Congressman Andy Barr, who is run­ning for the U.S. Senate. 

“The rea­son I resigned was because of cor­rup­tion, and what I hope to do as a for­mer cor­rup­tion pros­e­cu­tor is to take this head on,” Dembo said dur­ing a cam­paign vis­it to Winchester last week. 

He was actu­al­ly a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor twice. He served in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division from 2017 until 2020, when he became Gov. Andy Beshear’s pol­i­cy advi­sor and, even­tu­al­ly, leg­isla­tive direc­tor, and then lat­er was appoint­ed assis­tant U.S. attor­ney for Lexington. 

Dembo is also a for­mer Navy JAG offi­cer and taught English as part of the Teach for America pro­gram in Mississippi after col­lege at Stanford University. He decid­ed to go into the mil­i­tary while earn­ing his law degree at the University of Michigan. 

He and his wife, Lindsey, live in Lexington. 

Dembo spoke to a group of about 40 Democrats at the Cardinal Community Center, where Chelsea Kirk, a can­di­date for the state leg­is­la­ture, and Jeannie Gwynne, a can­di­date for coun­ty mag­is­trate, also made remarks and answered questions. 

The con­gres­sion­al can­di­date said Democrats in the 6^th District face “a rare con­flu­ence of events,” includ­ing hav­ing an open seat that the par­ty could flip for the first time since 2004, when Democrat Ben Chandler won it, and hav­ing a vot­er base that is angry about issues includ­ing infla­tion and corruption. 

Alvarado served in the Kentucky Senate until 2022, when he resigned his seat to become Tennessee’s health com­mis­sion­er. The Republican can­di­date cam­paigned on his sup­port from the pres­i­dent and has said he would be an ally of Trump in Congress. 

“We need an inde­pen­dent voice and a fight­er in D.C., not a rub­ber stamp,” Dembo told his audience. 

The Democrat point­ed out that Beshear was able to car­ry the 6^th District by 20 points in 2023, although the gov­er­nor won Clark County by only about 400 votes. 

“I think it’s going to be close for us too, but we can pull it off,” he said. 

Ronni Tallent, chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, said Democratic turnout on Nov. 3 needs to be about 47 per­cent for the par­ty to be able to win the dis­trict. It’s usu­al­ly about 20 percent. 

In response to a ques­tion from the audi­ence about the Trump admin­is­tra­tion using the Department of Justice to go after the president’s polit­i­cal ene­mies, Dembo talked about cor­rup­tion in a broad­er sense, and not only involv­ing the Trump admin­is­tra­tion and Republicans. 

“People are get­ting rich off of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey — our mon­ey,” he said. “But I’m upset that mem­bers of Congress can trade indi­vid­ual stocks. Democrats and Republicans have been ben­e­fit­ing from that for years.” 

Also, he said, mem­bers of both par­ties become lob­by­ists after they leave Congress, and that shouldn’t be allowed because of the poten­tial con­flicts of interest. 

Dembo gave as an exam­ple the president’s deal to cre­ate a $1.8 bil­lion slush fund to com­pen­sate his sup­port­ers who he believes were wrong­ful­ly pros­e­cut­ed, includ­ing par­tic­i­pants in the dead­ly Jan. 6, 2021 insur­rec­tion who stormed the U.S. Capitol. 

“It was so tox­ic that even many Republican sen­a­tors were like, ‘I’m not going to mess with this,’” he said. 

Will Grant remem­bered that when he was grow­ing up in Georgia, President Jimmy Carter was pres­sured to put his agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness in a blind trust. 

“I can only imag­ine how lit­tle that was worth in a rel­a­tive sense” com­pared to the busi­ness deals Trump and his fam­i­ly have made while in office, he said. 

Former City Commissioner Rick Beach asked Dembo about a report that by 2032, Social Security will no longer be able to pay out full ben­e­fits to recip­i­ents. He asked what might be done to get the pro­gram on a sound footing. 

Dembo answered that before Congress con­sid­ers means test­ing ben­e­fi­cia­ries or rais­ing the full retire­ment age, it should think about how to bring in more rev­enue and reduce the amount that’s going out. 

“I think it’s an iron-clad com­mit­ment that I would nev­er want to see bro­ken,” he said. 

Dembo said the gov­ern­ment must get deficit spend­ing under con­trol. He said the president’s Big Beautiful Bill (its actu­al name) not only cut ser­vices for peo­ple in need but was a huge tax cut for the rich that added $1 tril­lion to the debt. 

Republican mem­bers of Congress also want to increase defense spend­ing by $1.5 tril­lion, he noted. 

“Both par­ties have been spend­ing like drunk­en sailors for a long time,” he said. 

As a Navy vet­er­an, he’s allowed to say that, he quipped. 

Dembo said he would be against allow­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence com­pa­nies to use emi­nent domain to con­demn prop­er­ty for data centers. 

Asked whether Democrats should impeach President Trump a third time if they regain con­trol of the House, Dembo said that depends on what the Senate does. 

It’s believed to be less like­ly that Democrats will take the Senate than the House. 

“If we don’t impeach the pres­i­dent, we can impeach lots of oth­ers, and I can tell you, there’s a long list,” he said. 

Dembo indi­cat­ed he was dis­mayed by Congress’s will­ing­ness to cede its author­i­ty to the exec­u­tive branch on every­thing from war pow­ers to tar­iffs, and he aimed sharp crit­i­cism at Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. 

“Speaker Johnson has to be the weak­est speak­er in the his­to­ry of the coun­try,” he said. “He has no spine, and he is com­plete­ly craven.” 

“So much of the prob­lem we have now is just Congress not doing its job in so many ways,” he said. 

At the end of his remarks, Dembo gave a shout-out to Kirk, say­ing she was a “great can­di­date” for the state legislature. 

“I’m so glad she stepped up,” he said, adding that he would do what­ev­er he could to help her campaign. 

Kirk, who is the Democratic can­di­date for the 73^rd District in the state House, is run­ning to fill the vacan­cy left by Ryan Dotson’s deci­sion to run for Congress. Her Republican oppo­nent is 1^st District Magistrate Daniel Konstantopoulos. 

She said she is one of sev­er­al younger can­di­dates who are “bring­ing ener­gy” to the con­test and are con­cerned about issues such as ris­ing health care costs and oth­er afford­abil­i­ty fac­tors that affect young fam­i­lies as well as those more vulnerable. 

Gwynne, who faces Republican Scott Hisle in the gen­er­al elec­tion, said she has not been pleased with the way the Clark County Fiscal Court has oper­at­ed in recent years, and added that Konstantopoulos was one of those responsible. 

But, she said, she was more hope­ful about being able to work with new mem­bers of the court, includ­ing Republicans, to make need­ed changes. 

“Once again, we’ll be able to work with city gov­ern­ment,” which is some­thing the coun­ty hasn’t done as well as it could have under the cur­rent make­up of the court, she said. 

A police dis­patch­er for most of her career, Gwynne said she has writ­ten many grants for local gov­ern­ment, includ­ing a cou­ple recent­ly award­ed to the Winchester Police Department for body armor and weapons. 

“I can bring that to the table,” she said.