It does make sense to me and I can see why the PR's are being set up they way are. When Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, they knew they were going to get a Worthless Stock deduction on Wachovia, so they did the deal.
IRS announced that companies that bought troubled banks, like Wells Fargo buying Wachovia, would receive enormous tax benefits as a reward for helping stave off a collapse of the entire global banking system. In a sense, Wells Fargo was able to use these tax breaks to get Wachovia for free.
JPM did not buy WMB on the market, they bought it through a FDIC receivership, that means "no tax benefits to JPM" but plenty of Tax benefits to the holding company that owned WMB.
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