[4] She previously held government positions as a deputy attaché and intelligence analyst at the United States Department of the Treasury and as a public affairs officer at USAID.

Ortagus worked as national security contributor at Fox News prior to her appointment as State Department spokesperson.

[3] From 2007 to 2008, Ortagus was a public affairs officer at United States Agency for International Development (USAID), spending several months in Baghdad, Iraq.

She worked to counter illicit financial flows and was the principal liaison from the Treasury Department to the banking sector in Saudi Arabia.

[14] After returning to the United States, Ortagus joined the private sector, first as global relationship manager at Standard Chartered Bank working with clients from Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and then in 2016 as executive director at Ernst & Young (EY), where she helped found EY's Geostrategic Business Group working on geopolitical risk analysis for investors.

[3][12] In 2013, she was the vice president of the board of the Friends of the Public Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan, based in Washington.

[3][12] Ortagus and Samantha Vinograd co-founded GO Advisors, a geopolitical risk and policy advisory firm that focused on bridging divides between Wall Street and Silicon Valley with the White House and U.S. Treasury Department.

During her tenure, she promoted the Abraham Accords, which brokered peace agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan.

[6] Post-government, Ortagus was a Senior Advisor for the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council, but left by March 2022.

On June 10, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that the Republican Party had not violated open meetings laws, thus keeping the three off the ballot.

[29] She has condemned the Chinese government's treatment of workers in Xinjiang, China as well as their detention and indoctrination of Uyghur and other religious and ethnic minorities, and called on the CCP to end the use of forced labor.

[30] In May 2020, Ortagus said that China was "breaking its word 27 years early" regarding its imposition of a new national security law in Hong Kong and was "taking over the largest financial hub in Asia.

"[33] Iran did so via Operation Martyr Soleimani, the largest ballistic missile attack ever against Americans,[34] resulting in traumatic brain injuries for 110 U.S. servicemen at the Ayn al Asad Airbase in Iraq.

"[6] Ortagus was present for the September 11, 2020, phone call between President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah on which the Abraham Accords was agreed to.

[37] In August 2019, Ortagus called on the Russian Federation to use deconfliction channels to prevent escalation around the border of the Russian-occupied Georgian region of South Ossetia.

[38] In May 2020, she blamed Russian interference in Syria, Libya, and Yemen for exacerbating humanitarian crises and causing the deaths of civilians.

"[42] She argues that global food insecurity is not just a humanitarian crisis but also a national security threat for America, fostering conditions ripe for terrorism and mass migration.