Convicted leaker Army Pfc. Bradley Manning acknowledged Wednesday that by leaking tens of thousands of pages of classified documents he "hurt people and hurt the United States."

"I understood what I was doing was wrong but I didn't appreciate the broader effects of my actions," he said during his sentencing hearing at Maryland's Fort Meade. "I only wanted to help people, not hurt people."

The former Army intelligence analyst was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of classified documents and videos to WikiLeaks. The counts against him included violations of the Espionage Act. He was found guilty of 20 of the 22 charges against him, and he could face up to 90 years in prison if the judge imposes the maximum sentence.