The rift between conservative and establishment Republicans in the Senate grew over the weekend after Sen. Ted Cruz accused Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor Friday of telling fellow Republicans a "flat-out lie" about a "special deal." Three Republican Senators lined up in a rare Sunday session to rebuke Cruz for "squabbling and sanctimony."

Just after McConnell worked out a vote on renewing the hotly debated Export-Import Bank, which conservatives decry as promoting crony capitalism, Cruz took the Senate floor to condemn the Majority Leader for lying to fellow Senators:

"Not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again, was a simple lie," Cruz said. "It saddens me to say this. I sat in my office, I told my staff the majority leader looked me in the eye and looked 54 Republicans in the eye. I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie."

Cruz expanded on the context of McConnell's "flat-out lie" on the Rush Limbaugh show Friday. "Back when we were having the fight over trade promotion authority, I asked Mitch McConnell directly if he had cut a deal to reauthorize this cronyism and corporate welfare in order to try to get the votes," Cruz said, "and he looked at me, he looked at all 54 Republican senators, and he said flat-out, 'There is no deal. There is no deal. There is no deal.'"

McConnell denied having had to work out a "special deal" to bring the Export-Import Bank to a vote, saying there was enough support for it to happen on its own despite his opposition.

Meanwhile in the session Sunday, three Republican Senators—Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and John Cornyn (Texas)—denounced Cruz for bringing "campaign trail" rhetoric to the Senate floor.

"Squabbling and sanctimony may be tolerated in other venues and perhaps on the campaign trail, but they have no place among colleagues in the United States Senate," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), the Senate’s president pro tempore.

"The Senate floor has even become a place where senators have singled out colleagues by name to attack them … and impugn their character in blatant disregard for Senate rules," said Hatch. "Such misuses of the Senate floor must not be tolerated."

Cruz responded to Hatch by saying that while he agreed that civility was important in Congress, "Speaking the truth about actions is entirely consistent with civility."