People are misreading Barr's statements badly IMO.
Barr has made it clear in words and actions he believes his JOB is to implement the POTUS's bidding. He is no more independent than McConnell's Senate in an Impeachment trial.
Barr knows he can be most effective in that regard when he can maintain plausible deniability and say he acted independently. Trump makes his JOB more difficult (which he said) by putting it out that these were his desires, his goals, that Barr is implementing.
It was the same when Trump and Rudy named Barr as part of the Ukraine mess as involved in the execution. Barr was like 'no, you idiots, I am supposed to not be involved up front and only when Ukraine asks me to get involved I will say it is my duty to participate with an ally who makes the request. But I never sought this out.'
So Barr was making an appeal to his boss, POTUS, in the only way he knows Trump is sure to hear it. He knows he does not listen in person and he does not read but he does watch TV and so Barr is saying it on TV. Boss you are making it harder for me to do my JOB (wink, wink), so please stop tweeting out what I am about to do, before I do it, which makes it tougher for me to pretend we did not talk about it and it was independently my choice.