Citation desperately needed. Here's a contribution from literally the day before he had his commit access stolen.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/006cdf64dc932
Even if he did say that, it's irrelevant to this discussion. Him "no longer contributing" was not the reason his commit access was revoked. It was revoked as a power grab because he wanted to and had the power to increase the block size. Nothing more.