"It's time to move on," Bush said.

And that answer hung over the hearing held Wednesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee to probe "President Clinton's Eleventh Hour Pardons," the snappy title that Republicans thought up for the event. Though the hearing was nominally aimed at all 47 of the Clinton pardons that didn't go through the typical Justice Department vetting, it was truly aimed at the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Had the day ended with the hearing, in fact, it would have counted as a win for both Clinton and Rich. But as the close of the business day approached, the U.S. attorney in New York, Mary Jo White, announced she was opening a criminal investigation into the pardon, looking into whether it was a quid pro quo -- money given on Rich's behalf for his freedom.

Rich is the millionaire commodities trader who fled the country with business partner Pincus Green in 1983, days before prosecutors indicted the duo on 51 charges, including tax evasion and racketeering. Rich eluded extradition by renouncing his American citizenship, and has grown even wealthier by building up his business in Switzerland. In the intervening years, Denise Rich, the fugitive financier's former wife, became a big Democratic donor, giving more than $1 million to the Democratic National Committee and various other party candidates, including the president and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In his last hours in the White House, Clinton pardoned Rich without consulting the prosecutors who had nabbed him back in 1983, without the firm support of the Justice Department, and apparently without checking with other federal agencies, like the CIA and the FBI, which would have likely red-flagged Rich.

One factor, perhaps, of the Rich pardon was the involvement of former White House counsel Jack Quinn, who left the Clinton administration in 1997 and joined the Rich legal team in 1999. Another potentially influential factor was Denise Rich's money. In addition to the hundreds of thousands she had given to the Democrats, she gave $450,000 to Clinton's presidential library, and gave the Clintons some of the last-minute gifts that earned them more trouble with their critics.

Those facts have recently reinvigorated Clinton foes for this battle. Last week, the Republicans on the House Government Reform Committee, led by perpetual Clinton antagonist Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., went after the Rich pardon with real gusto, raking Quinn and former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder over the coals, and spreading a wide subpoena net for Clinton's donors and allies.

But Bush seemed to deflate the balloon for Republican senators. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, set the tone with a stern but academic opening statement. "Our focus at today's hearing will be process," he said, and soon afterward he left the hearing altogether to conduct other business in the Senate. Departing with him was Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democratic member of the panel. The GOP members filtered in and out of the proceedings, and most of the Democrats left right after making their opening statements.

That left the temporary chairmanship to Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the designated Don Quixote of the Rich pardon case, who in the last week called for a constitutional amendment to allow Congress to review presidential pardons, and suggested that Clinton could somehow be impeached even though he has already left office. But today's proceedings carried little gravitas.

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