UPDATED 4:57 p.m. ET to reflect that there is no investigation
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is not probing whether Texas Sen. Ted Cruz disclosed classified information during Tuesday's Republican presidential debate, conflicting earlier reports from earlier in the day.
"The committee is not investigating anything said during last night's Republican debate," according to a joint statement released Wednesday afternoon by Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, vice chair of the committee.
JUST IN: Stmt from Senate Intel Cmte: “The Committee is not investigating anything said during last night’s Republican Presidential debate.”— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorpNBC) December 16, 2015
Earlier in the day, reports surfaced that Burr was looking into comments Cruz made at the debate in Las Vegas regarding the USA Freedom Act, which made changes to bulk phone metadata collection. Cruz believes it was a good idea to end the program.
"I'm having my staff look at the transcripts of the debate right now," Burr told reporters Wednesday morning, according to NBC News.
Sen Intel Chair Burr says he asked staff to review Ted Cruz's comments from debate to see if he released classified info -h/t @tedbarrettcnn— Deirdre Walsh (@deirdrewalshcnn) December 16, 2015
Becca Glover Watkins, Burr's communications director who questioned whether Cruz released confidential information in a tweet last night, declined to comment on whether an investigation ever existed. And, if it did, whether it concluded anything.
Cruz shouldn't have said that.— Becca Glover Watkins (@beccaglover) December 16, 2015
Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio traded fire over the merits of the metadata collection program at the debate.
"The old program covered 20 percent to 30 percent of phone numbers to search for terrorists, the new program covers nearly 100 percent," Cruz said, "That gives us greater ability to stop acts of terrorism, and he knows that that's the case."
Rubio though has argued that it was a mistake to end the government's metadata collection efforts, and during Tuesday's debate he discussed the issue with caution.
“Let me be very careful when answering this, because I don’t think national television in front of 15 million people is the place to discuss classified information,” Rubio said in response. “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.”
Cruz's spokeswoman told reporters that the material he referenced was "widely reported."
"There's nothing that Senator Cruz said last night that wasn't widely reported and saturated in the public domain,” Cruz’s spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told NBC News.