Bard College has launched an “independent review” of its president’s ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after newly released emails from the Department of Justice revealed close links between the two.

The liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, made the announcement in a statement from its board of trustees on Thursday. The board said it had retained the outside law firm WilmerHale to review the email correspondence. The* New York Times* reported that Dr. Leon Botstein, the college’s president since 1975, had long maintained that his relationship with Epstein was strictly philanthropic, aimed at securing a sizable donation to bolster Bard’s flagging finances.…