Douglas Daus told defense attorney Emil Bove that the recording on Michael Cohen's phone of of a 2016 conversation with Donald Trump lacks any metadata to suggest it was ever modified. Bove asked Judge Merchan to strike the response from the record, but the judge denied the request.

Bove then continued to ask Daus about about reliability of the evidence extracted from Cohen's phones.

At one point, Bove suggested that jurors would have to take "Michael Cohen's word for it" regarding the integrity of the evidence after Daus was unable to answer a series of questions with confidence. Daus' said his role was limited to extracting the data from phone, so he couldn't answer questions about the context of the investigation.

Bove suggested for a second time that, in order to fully trust the integrity of the phone, "We would have to take Michael Cohen's word for it."

"It would seem so," Daus said.

Bove subsequently ended his cross-examination of Daus.

Defense attorney Emil Bove Bove continued his attempts from yesterday to cast doubt on the integrity of the secret recording that Michael Cohen made of a conversation with Donald Trump on September 6, 2016, in which the two appeared to discusses the hush money payment to Karen McDougal.

Bove highlighted that Cohen conducted a factory reset of his phone on October 15, 2016.

"That sequencing ... raises some questions about that file right?" Bove asked.

"You have to then look at where that file came from," Daus responded.

"It raises some questions that require further analysis?" Bove asked.

"That is fair," Daus said.

It's unclear if the factory reset materially impacted the recording in any way since Cohen had backed up his device, Daus said.

Bove also repeated a line of questions from yesterday about the abrupt end to the recording of the Cohen-Trump conversation.

"You don't know how long the conservation continued?" Bove asked.

"No I don't," Daus said.

Yesterday, Daus suggested that Cohen's phone received a call that may have prompted the recording to end, but Bove suggested today that the extraction lacked any metadata to suggest an incoming call was received.

Defense attorney Emil Bove has resumed his cross-examination of custodial witness Doug Daus, who conducted the extraction of Michael Cohen's two iPhones for the Manhattan's DA's office.

Bove appears to be continuing a line of questioning to raise suspicions about the chain of custody related to the phones.

He asked Daus about a four-day gap between the Manhattan DA receiving the phone and delivering it to the unit that processes the phone's contents. Bove also asked about only one witness signing the receipt form for the phone.

Bove also asked Daus about a "self-destruct timer" that Cohen used for one of his encrypted messaging apps. Daus confirmed that Cohen used the setting for some chats on one his three encrypted messaging applications.

Before the jury was led into the courtroom, Judge Merchan addressed whether an image of Donald Trump and Billy Bush that appeared in a Washington Post article about the "Access Hollywood" tape should be allowed into evidence.

The judge reiterated his ruling not to have the "Access Hollywood" tape played for the jury, though he repeated his earlier determination that prosecutors could show jurors a transcript of the remarks, which included Trump boasting about grabbing women.

"I don't want those words to be associated with Mr. Trump's face or voice," Merchan said.

"We are going to call it a week at this time," Judge Merchan told the jury, dismissing them for the weekend.

The judge then gathered attorneys for both sides to continue the case's Sandoval hearing, begun last week, about the limit on Trump's potential testimony.

Defense attorney Todd Blanche objected to Trump being cross-examined on his gag order violations.

"Injecting into the cross-examination a finding by your honor beyond a reasonable doubt of contempt ... it puts a layer on top of the testimony," Blanche said. "It invites a sideshow that the People don't need."

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo argued that the gag order violations are relevant to Trump's credibility because if he violated the gag order, he similarly might "violate his obligation to tell the truth."

"These findings are relevant to the defendant's credibility if he chooses to testify," he said.

Issuing his ruling, Merchan denied the prosecution's request to cross-examine Trump on the gag order violations, finding that a determination from the court would be too prejudicial for the jury to overlook.

"I agree with Mr. Blanche," Merchan said, ending the week's proceedings.