After graduation, Finley worked for several media organizations, including NBC's Office of Corporate Affairs, ABC News and the Washington Post.

Addressing a Kazakh official in a speech during an OSCE session in Vienna, Finley stated, "When I was in Kazakhstan a couple of weeks ago I had the interesting pleasure of reading some of this [sic] newspapers that have been seized.

"[5] The U.S. State Department had been pushing Nazarbayev to respect press freedoms, but that message "became mixed" when Finley made her comment, Chivers wrote.

Finley declined to comment to the Times about her statement, though a colleague said that the quote had been ad libbed and did not reflect the Ambassador's "true feelings.

[10] Her husband was a lawyer who clerked for Associate Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. in 1964 and became a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in January 1991.