UPDATING: Intelligence Committee Chair To Investigate If Ted Cruz Released Classified Info In Debate

Did Senator Ted Cruz in a heated moment release classified intelligence during the GOP debate? 

As The New Civil Rights Movement reported this morning, Senator Ted Cruz in a heated interaction with Senator Marco Rubio seemed to have revealed classified information during Tuesday’s GOP debate on CNN. Sen. Rubio even offered a bit of a surprised and panicked admonishment upon hearing Cruz’s comments.

Now, according to one report, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr (R-NC) will be investigating to determine if Cruz did.

Rubio, who is on the Intelligence Committee, interrupted his opponent after Cruz began speaking about the NSA’s metadata programs.

“Let me be very careful when answering this,” Rubio cautioned, “because I don’t think national television in front of 15 million people is the place to discuss classified information. So let me just be very clear. There is nothing that we are allowed to do under this bill that we could not do before.”

RELATED: Carly Fiorina And Ted Cruz May Have Revealed Classified Information During GOP Debate

What Cruz said that raised many eyebrows, even on Twitter, was:

“What [Rubio] knows is that the old program covered 20 percent to 30 percent of phone numbers to search for terrorists. The new program covers nearly 100 percent. That gives us greater ability to stop acts of terrorism, and he knows that that’s the case.”

Immediately after, Senator Burr’s Communications Director sent this tweet:

Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall reports that Senator Burr “says that his staff will be looking into whether Cruz did in fact cross the line.”

Marshall also cautions that this may be more of an issue of politics than of national security. Cruz is not liked by many in the Senate. Or, as Marshall puts it, most Senate Republicans “despise him personally.”

But the fact remains that Cruz (and Carly Fiorina) last night may indeed have leaked classified intelligence, and there should be an official price to pay for that. 

UPDATE I: 12:15 PM EST –

“I’m having my staff look at the transcripts of the debate right now,” Burr has just told reporters, NBC News reports:

“The question had been raised therefor I asked them to look at it and see if there was any validity to it,” Burr told reporters, “Anytime you deal with numbers, and I think it dealt with numbers, the question is: Is that classified or not or is there an open source reference to it. So it’s not as clear as just reading what he said. We’ve got to search all sorts of media outlets to see if anybody had reported the number independently.”

UPDATE II: 1:02 PM EST –

One amusing footnote from the AP, a quote from Chairman Burr, who apparently did not watch the debate:

Burr noted that he had not actually seen the exchange in question. “The Voice was on. It was the final episode,” he said.

UPDATE III: 1:56 PM EST –

Campaign Insists Ted Cruz Did Not Reveal Classified NSA Intelligence During GOP Debate

 

This is a breaking news and developing story. This story has been updated. Details may change. Stay tuned. Refresh for updates. 

Image: Screenshot via CNN/YouTube