I would opt to not weld these clipped corners, but I have no real verbiage anywhere to back that up. In a related issue, filling rat holes of CJP welds in beams or columns ( http://www.aws.org/cgi-bin/mwf/topic_show.pl?id=3946#15995 ), it was decided that welding in this area was not advised. This situation is similar enough to make me lean that way. Best thing to do would be to get the engineer involved in the decision. Hopefully the engineer has welding related knowledge to help make that decision.