Motivation is not required for this to be a crime, at least in the sense you're using it.

What you're referring to is the "mental state" requirement for criminal liability. Mental state requirements vary with the statutes, and fall generally into buckets like "knowingly" or "recklessly" or "willfully" or "intentionally".

For 50 USC 1705, the standard implicated is "willfully". You can read all sorts of things about what the "willfully" standard requires, but here's a good trick when you want to use Google to quickly parse a criminal law question: Google your search term along with [model jury instructions]. These are the templates used as a starting point for the "rules" given to juries to reach verdicts.†

For "willfullness" in federal court, you'll find something like this:

    The offense(s) of (state offense or offenses that include willfully)
    charged in the indictment require(s) the government to prove that
    (name) acted “willfully” with respect to an (certain) element(s) of
    the offense(s). This means the government must prove beyond a
    reasonable doubt that (name) knew (his) (her) conduct was unlawful and
    intended to do something that the law forbids. That is, to find that
    (name) acted “willfully,” you must find that the evidence proved
    beyond a reasonable doubt that (name) acted with a purpose to disobey
    or disregard the law. “Willfully” does not, however, require proof
    that (name) had any evil motive or bad purpose other than the purpose
    to disobey or disregard the law. [“Willfully” (does) (does not)
    require proof that the actor knew of the existence and meaning of the
    statute making his conduct criminal.]

Note carefully: "“Willfully” does not, however, require proof that (name) had any evil motive or bad purpose other than the purpose to disobey or disregard the law.".

This standard is presumably why the complaint takes the time to point out multiple instances at which Griffith makes it clear that he's ignoring the sanction rules.

† I have no legal training at all, but it's my understanding that jury instructions are one of the fronts that a criminal trial is fought on, and so the template model jury instructions might not ultimately be the ones given to the jury; with that said, it seems unlikely that basic matters of law, like what a statute means when it refers to someone committing an offense "willfully", are really likely to budge much.