Peter Thorne | ChicagoTribune.comJudi Reiss is a self-described former ‘Mama for Obama’ who says she fondly remembers spending many weekends in Pennsylvania going door to door to help get President Obama elected. She voted for the President, but is now feeling “abandoned and betrayed” and says she won’t vote for him again because of how she thinks the White House is handling the ‘War on Terror’.For Judi the last straw came with the recent nomination of longtime Washington lawyer James Cole to be the Deputy US Attorney General. If confirmed Cole would be number two at the Department of Justice and play a key role in how suspected terrorists are prosecuted. For Judi that would amount to a massive conflict of interest.Reiss’s son Joshua worked for Cantor/Fitzgerald and was killed during the terror attacks of September 11th. Now she’s a member of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Stronger America. A watchdog group of people who lost family and friends in the terror attacks. The group is now going public to protest James Cole’s nomination.Judi says she’s alarmed that when Cole was a lawyer in private practice he chose to defend Prince Naif Bin Adbulaziz Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family named in a lawsuit filed on behalf of 9/11 families and insurance companies after allegations surfaced suggesting the Prince and others had been involved in financing terrorism.But key parts of that explosive lawsuit against the Saudi Prince were dismissed. And the 9/11 report found no evidence that the Saudi government or senior officials funded Al-Qaeda.Tonight PIX 11 News was provided this statement from the US Department of Justice: “”There is no conflict of interest with the Deputy Attorney General position resulting from Mr. Cole’s representation in this case. Department attorneys are subject to ethics and disclosure rules as required under both Department guidelines and the Administration’s own ethics rules, which are the strongest in history. One of the hallmarks of our nation’s legal system is that attorneys provide faithful representation to their clients. It is wrong to identify lawyers with the client or the views the lawyer advances for the client, and our history is replete with such examples from John Adams representing British soldiers to Department of Defense JAG lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees.”Even so, with so many other possible candidate for the job, 9/11 watchdogs like Judi Reiss wonder why the administration she once so proudly supported would pick someone who in her view is as controversial as James Cole.Coles confirmation hearings started today and are expected to last for another two weeks.