[0110101001]

It seems either like his goal was treason, and going public was a bargaining chip to avoid being extrajudicially disappeared somewhere or whistleblowing was his goal and doing it in an adversarial country with loads of confidential documents that have nothing to do with any possible NSA wrongdoing was a bargaining chip to avoid US prosecution.

The latter seems far more likely to me as an observer, but in either case, both public revealation AND harm to the US were on the table.