Stephen Moore, the conservative economics commentator, will no longer be nominated to the Federal Reserve by Donald Trump, the president said on Thursday.

Trump said on Twitter that Moore had “decided to withdraw from the Fed process” just hours after Moore insisted in an interview that he and the White House were “all in” and planned to see the process through.

The president’s decision follows a series of reports by the Guardian on Moore’s financial and legal issues, and a controversy over past remarks about women made by Moore in speeches and published articles.

In a letter to Trump released after the president’s tweet, Moore said: “The unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family and three more months of this would be too hard on us.”

Earlier on Thursday, the Guardian revealed that Moore had continued underpaying alimony to his ex-wife for years after he was reprimanded by a judge for failing to pay his debts to her.

Moore was, in 2012, found in contempt of court for failing to pay $300,000 in alimony and money owed in his divorce settlement. He was separately pursued by the Internal Revenue Service for $75,000 in unpaid taxes.

The president’s selection of Moore, a former Wall Street Journal writer and mainstay of conservative economic thinktanks in Washington, was sharply criticised by economists including the Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman.

Concerns were raised over Moore’s lack of academic experience, along with his explicitly political campaigning for Republicans over recent decades – highly unusual for a senior official at the powerful central bank.

But Trump finally moved to drop him after several Republican senators indicated that they would not vote to confirm him to the influential role, which typically carries a 14-year term.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine complained this week that Moore had “a lot of personal financial issues as well as troubling writings about women and our role in society”.

Doubts about Trump’s selection of Moore were also expressed by other Republicans including Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa and Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, who said of Moore’s unpaid taxes: “He better pay ’em!”

Democrats on the Senate banking committee, which would have considered Moore’s nomination, had requested detailed records on his finances and taxes following the Guardian reports.

Trump’s choice for a second vacancy on the Federal Reserve board, the businessman, Herman Cain, withdrew from consideration last month amid renewed scrutiny of past allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies.

The president said on Thursday that he had asked Moore, a former adviser to his presidential campaign, “to work with me toward future economic growth” but did not specify a role.

In his letter to Trump, Moore stated that so-called “Trumponomics” – which is also the title of his book championing the president’s economic policy – “has been VINDICATED”. He concluded: “I am always at your disposal.”