In the waning hours of his failed presidency, Joe Biden was able to announce a minor success: two Americans, Ryan Corbett and William McKenty, whom he'd allowed to languish in captivity since the disastrous rout of US forces from that country were coming home.

The Taliban government freed Ryan Corbett and William Wallace McKenty in exchange for Khan Mohammed, who was released from a U.S. federal prison.

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a conditional commutation to Mr. Mohammed before he left office, though officials did not disclose the order until Mr. McKenty and Mr. Corbett were freed.

Not as highly publicized at the time was the fact that Biden left two other Americans behind. 

Two other American captives remain in Afghanistan: George Glezmann, a former airline mechanic, and Mahmood Habibi, a naturalized American who was seized soon after a U.S. strike in Afghanistan killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al Qaeda.

Leaving folks behind seems to have been one of the core operating principles of the Biden defense and foreign policy team. Let's face it: the Biden general who created a heroic mythos for himself as "the last man out of Afghanistan" threw 50 Afghan refugees off an airplane so he could bring home war trophies; see 'Last Man Out of Afghanistan' Has Promotion to Four-Star General Scuttled Over Afghanistan Withdrawal.

It was also not terribly transparent about the numbers. At least once before, the "last hostage" in Afghanistan was announced as released.

"The Taliban Monday freed Mark Frerichs, the only American hostage remaining in Afghanistan, in exchange for a Taliban drug lord, Bashir Noorzai, who was serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison." pic.twitter.com/wC6wCOWdLy

— Shawn Ryan Show (@ShawnRyanShow) May 3, 2024

Two Americans have been released by the Taliban, but two more remain. Why two to go? Because this deal revealed something troubling: our government wasn’t being honest with us. The Taliban didn’t have three American hostages, as we were led to believe—they actually had four.…

— Sarah Adams (@TPASarah) January 21, 2025

Apparently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was taken off guard by the news that a hostage problem he'd probably thought was dealt with still existed.

Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported. If this is true, we will have to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on Bin Laden.

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@secrubio) January 25, 2025

Perhaps I've been doing this too long, but I can't help but notice this does not say "two" more American hostages, rather it leaves the number undefined as the Taliban have refused to give an accounting for the number of foreign nationals they hold.

The Taliban weren't all that happy at Rubio's offer to put bounties on their heads. Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban's ambassador to Qatar, offered, "In the face of pressure and aggression, the jihad (struggle) of the Afghan nation in recent decades is a lesson that everyone should learn from."

Regardless there are two salient facts. First, Joe Biden lied about the number of Americans held in Afghanistan and, according to relatives, made no effort to have two Americans included in the January prisoner release. The second known fact is that these two hostages will be made examples of Trump's inability to get things done unless he does free them. In that case, it will be as if they had never existed.