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Obama's civil rights nominee withdraws

President Barack Obama's nominee to run the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Debo Adegbile, officially withdrew Monday after his nomination ran aground in the Senate over his representation of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal.

The White House sent a formal withdrawal of the nomination to the Senate Monday and said that Adegbile made the decision to drop his candidacy for the job of assistant attorney general for civil rights.

"Debo Adegbile has withdrawn himself from consideration for a position at the Department of Justice, and we are actively working toward announcing a new nominee for the post," said a White House spokesperson who asked not to be named.

Obama nominated the veteran civil rights litigator to the high-profile job last November. However, the administration encountered uniform opposition to the nomination from Republicans, as well as a handful of Democrats. Many of them said they questioned Adegbile's decision to help litigate appeals filed by Abu Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of murdering a police officer in Philadelphia the previous year. He was sentenced to death but after nearly three decades of appeals the sentence was converted to life in prison in 2011.

Abu Jamal's case has been celebrated by some liberal activists, who claim he was framed, and pointed to by death penalty supporters as evidence of gratuitous delays in carrying out capital punishment.

When Adegbile's nomination was called to a vote in March, he needed the support of 50 senators as a result of filibuster changes better known as the nuclear option and pushed through by Democrats over Republican objections in late 2013. However, the nominee couldn't even muster a majority, ultimately getting just 47 votes. Five Democratic senators opposed Adegbile's confirmation.

Adegbile said the work on Abu Jamal's case was not considered much of an issue when the White House vetted him.

"I think if you look into it, it would be a rare situation in which somebody was blocked from public service for having successfully vindicated the Constitution of the United States," Adegbile told the Huffington Post in an interview. "In our system, you get counsel, you make your case to the court, and then the court rules and we agree as a society, as a civilized society, to abide by that rule of law. Therefore I don't think that there was a lot of focus in my participation in that defense as being disqualifying in any way."

When Adegbile's nomination failed to clear the Senate in March, both Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder issued statements decrying opposition to the nominee based on his legal work for an unpopular client. Critics of Adegbile said he had no duty or obligation to represent Abu Jamal.

Adegbile said Monday that he plans to join D.C.- and Boston-based law firm Wilmer Hale.