Sen. Richard Blumenthal asserted that former acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan was potentially involved in a criminal cover-up for failing to disclose an alleged domestic violence incident before his nomination as the permanent secretary of defense.

“I feel that there was possibly a deliberate concealment here,” Blumenthal said Tuesday after Shanahan resigned when it was revealed that he was involved in a 2010 violent domestic dispute with his ex-wife. “I think there ought to be an investigation by the IG and the Department of Defense. There is absolutely no reason for the failure to disclose to the Arms Services Committee as a part of our process that there was something in this nominees past, Patrick Shanahan’s past, that was deliberately concealed or mistakenly covered up.”