You assign motives to your superior officer.

When asked about the attackers' goals, they assigned varied motives but often one that is consistent with their personal, social or political concerns.

Let that man who shall purpose to assign motives to the actions of another, blush at his folly and forbear.

And, he added, "We must conquer the temptation to assign bad motives to people who disagree with us."

He did not assign evil motives, arguing instead that the repression was based upon certain erroneous assumptions: "Hispanics don't read and can't write, so why publish them?

"I'm not assigning political motives," he said, but the seed was planted.

And that fear bordered on suspicion of them, assigning motives to their actions which they didn't actually have.

Separate the facts from your conclusions and don't assign motives.

Various witnesses assigned motives according to their own fears.

Patrick smiled ruefully; he was nineteen going on twenty - what right had he to assign motives to a woman?